Podcasts about when stephen

Hi, Profit Designers! As we at Tap the Potential gear up for a number of special, upcoming projects, we're taking this time to bring you some of our most popular episodes from the vault! We hope you enjoy it, and we'll be back with new episodes for you very soon!  In this episode, Stephen King, president and CEO of GrowthForce, joins Dr. Sabrina and her co-host, Mike Bruno, for an illuminating conversation around pricing. Should you discount during an economic downturn? Listen in to this discussion to hear compelling reasons why you should NOT discount, and what you should be doing, instead. Top executive at a Fortune 500 company. Bootstrapped CEO. Venture-backed tech startup founder. Non-profit fundraiser. It's safe to say Stephen King is not your traditional CPA. Stephen is president and CEO of GrowthForce, one of the nation's largest providers of outsourced bookkeeping and controller services. Regarded as an industry thought leader by AICPA and CPA.com, his ability to visualize the future of accounting has lead GrowthForce to become one of the fastest-growing companies in America. His experience at the forefront of technology development and accounting system design spans nearly three decades. In 1995 he founded Virtual Growth, the nation's first cloud-based accounting service, and quickly grew it into a market leader. After being acquired by Insperity, Stephen was brought on as president of Insperity's Financial Management Services division, serving two years before leaving to build GrowthForce. He also spent seven years working at Amnesty International USA—first overseeing 300 percent growth as CFO, then raising over $20M a year as Director of Development. Stephen's time at Amnesty reinforced his life-long commitment to giving back to the community. As a result, non-profits represent 35 percent of GrowthForce clients. Profit by Design is a Tap the Potential Production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group. Show Highlights: Business owners are feeling a lot of pressure in this new normal. Pricing is harder if you're not confident of the value that you're bringing. Stephen addresses the issues around discounting, then provides the math: If you have a 40 percent gross profit and you give a 10 percent discount, you need 33 percent more sales to generate the same bottom line. If you have a 30 percent margin, you need 50% more sales to generate the same bottom line. If you have a 40 percent gross profit and you ADD 10% to your pricing, you can sell 20 percent less and make the same money.  When Stephen let an objective person price his jobs, his fees started going up. Stephen shares some case studies and classic mistakes from clients that allow him to share their data. The accounting industry was designed for compliance. Financial accounting is designed for external users. For example, it is your CPA's job to help you pay as little in taxes as you're legally allowed to, to get you through an audit, and to keep the banks happy. Management accounting is about internal users and about understanding your unit economics, the profitability on each job.  Stephen explains the benefits of automated activity-based costing and cautions against time-leakage. Things to consider to gain confidence in pricing appropriately: Stephen offers accounting system suggestions to set up reports to show you your “income minus your cost of goods sold equals your gross profit”. Your gross profit percentage is the most important number of every financial statement. This will tell you if you're pricing right. Which clients should you fire? Which clients should you re-price? How do you spend money to make money in sales and marketing? Dr. Sabrina explains the 80/20 principle: 20 percent of your clients and customers are responsible for 80 percent of your revenue. If you focus on increasing revenue from the top 20 percent by 25 percent, you're at choice and you can get rid of 80 percent of your clients and customers. One mistake is to think that your biggest account is your best client. When you have the appropriate margin in your pricing you are able to run a much more simplified, streamlined business. Whatever you do, don't discount your services during an economic downturn. Don't make decisions based on fear. You need to have an attitude of gratitude. Surround yourself with people who have a positive mindset and who are looking for growth.   Links and Resources: Download Your Free Workbook: How to Make Your Time Worth $10,000 an Hour Register your A-Player team members for Tap the Potential's Leadership Bootcamp

When Stephen "Cat" turned twelve he fell in love with Ska and Pop music, and later Rocksteady and Reggae. He loved the Beatles and asked his mom for a guitar and she obliged and this started a love like no other. Cat joins Great Minds to discuss both his incredible music career, as well as the other legends of music he's played with along the way.

God's Perfect Plan Bible Study with Jairus – Acts 9 Peter and Paul In Acts 9, we see an abrupt transition from the transformation of Saul/Paul (vs. 1-30) to the story of Peter's ministry (vs. 31-32). Why this abrupt transition? Why does the storyline seem incoherent and inconsistent? To answer this question, let's look back briefly at chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 7 tells the story of Saul guarding the cloaks of those who stoned Stephen to death, and Chapter 8 talks about Philip evangelizing. Chapter 9 tells the story of Saul's conversion. These chapters introduce Saul (Paul), preparing readers to recognize him as the leading apostle and one of the main characters in the book of Acts. Before Paul's appearance, Peter is the leading force of the first-generation apostles, along with the twelve disciples he represents. At the beginning of the book of Acts, Jesus tells the disciples to wait at Jerusalem to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter preached a powerful message through the anointing of the Holy Spirit, bringing salvation to 3000 people. The twelve disciples worked together to preach God's word and bring others to Christ. Later, some widows complained about being ignored in the daily distribution of food. Stephen is introduced as one of the deacons who helped serve meals daily. Writing under the influence of the Holy Spirit, Luke chose to include the story of Stephen so that he could introduce Saul. After Saul is introduced briefly, we continue to follow Peter's story. Peter remains the main figure for a few more chapters. The transition between Peter's storyline and Paul's storyline has not yet completely occurred. Slowly, the focus will be shifted from Peter to Paul. In Acts 13:2, when the prophets and teachers were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit set apart Barnabas and Saul for the work that the Lord called them to. Paul was officially named an apostle, and from then on, he became the main character in the book of Acts. Paul wrote 14 New Testament letters, over half of the New Testament (27 books in total). Paul was clearly the main figure in the New Testament.   The Authority of God's Word Sometimes, we may be tempted to view the structure of Acts as disorganized. We may doubt the authority of God's word because of its seemingly incoherent structure. At the time of the Renaissance, the authority of the Bible was undermined. The church believed the earth was the center of the universe, and they executed Bruno, who advocated for the heliocentric theory of the earth.  They persecuted Copernicus, Galileo, and others, mocking their belief that the Earth is only a few thousand years old and revolves around the Sun. Because of this scientific mistake, many people lost their faith in the authority of the church and the Bible. Instead, science became the mainstream concept. Theology and belief in the Bible were marginalized to an extent. Recently, I took a Systemic Theology class from the United Theological Seminary (UTS). In the class, I learned how the church lost some of its credibility under the pressure of modern science. These factors helped to produce a liberal theology that does not believe in God's miracles and even denies that the Bible is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The church persisted in some traditional teachings that were not in line with the facts. For example, they continued to believe the earth was not round. Because of this, modern scientists who disbelieved the Bible had a chance to criticize them. However, our disregard towards the authority of the Bible can be changed as the Holy Spirit helps us understand it. As the Holy Spirit enlightens us, we will see the authoritative inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit helps us see that the transition between Paul and Peter are perfectly organized, like beautifully orchestrated movie cuts. If we view the Book of Acts as a movie script, we can see that the Holy Spirit is the best screenplay writer. We may think the organization of certain Bible verses or chapters are fragmented. As the Holy Spirit guides us, we can see that the various storylines in Acts are stitched together in perfect coherence by the best author of all.   The Beautiful Structure of God's Word I often use examples from Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to explain the Bible. According to Chinese Medicine, our bodies have many meridians. Wikimedia defines meridians as “paths through which the life-energy known as ‘qi' flows."[1] There are about 20 channels and along them about 400 acupuncture points. The acupuncturists use these acupuncture points and their channels to determine what medicine to use for certain diseases. They say a good combination of these efforts will bring better healing results. Of course not everyone agrees with this theory. I am just using this as an example. When the Holy Spirit inspired authors to write the Bible, he put down lines or hidden structures that flow through the Bible. These lines are just like meridians, or channels, that the Holy Spirit used to express His train of thought. If you are good writer or editor, you understand the importance of following certain threads throughout an entire narrative. A poor writer does not have a coherent thought that flows through his entire writing. The Holy Spirit is God. If we learn to see the coherent thought patterns behind the words on the page, we will marvel at how beautifully God inspired the Scriptures. If we do not understand it well or do not see the hidden line or channels, we will have a hard time understanding the Bible, in part or as a whole. Liberal theologians often deny the authority of the Bible because traditional theology was slow to accept the truths of science or to come in line with fact. Other traditional theology tended to be legalistic, so nonbelievers reject the Bible's truth. To counteract this trend of unbelief, we need to help others grasp the true meaning, coherence, and beauty of the word of God. We can understand this through the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe that God's children will feel it inside their spirit if something is really an illumination from God. As we study the Bible, we are not trying to just understand the written words. We also want to receive the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Often the questions that disturb us most are the very questions that the Holy Spirit wants to answer. At our church's Bible study, a believer shares their insights into the passage, and then we have a Q&A session. We allow people to ask questions about the passage. As we talk and discus the answers, we receive insights and inspiration from the Holy Spirit. As each person shares what God is teaching them, we all learn and grow. Today's discussion is an example of one of these inspirations. A lady asked about the sudden jump from Paul to Peter in this chapter, and the Holy Spirit helped me understand it. As we were discussing this question, I realized that Saul is introduced for the first time at the end of Acts Chapter 7. At the martyrdom of Stephen, Saul agreed to put Stephen to death (7:60). When Stephen was martyred, he was filled with Holy Spirit. He saw God's glory and Jesus standing at His right side. He prayed that God would not charge his murderers with sin, because they did not know what they were doing. This testimony is the root cause of Paul's salvation. The blood of martyrs is the seed that produces the flower and fruit of the gospel. On the one hand, Paul was saved because he was chosen by God and Jesus and because Jesus appeared to him in a vision. On the other hand, he was also saved because of Stephen's testimony. When I was still meeting with the Local Church Movement (LCM), I read a testimony about a man that was saved when the Boxers massacred missionaries. The Boxers used a prison wagon to carry a female missionary to the execution ground. The man in the story was so frightened that he hid behind a door and watched through the crack. He noticed this female missionary was not fearful; instead, her face was full of God's glory. The man was astonished at what he saw. He decided to believe in Christ as Savior. This story shows the power of a martyr's testimony. Stephen's testimony in Chapter 7 began to guide Paul towards salvation. As Stephen exits the stage, Paul begins his appearance. In a way, Paul inherited the spirit of Stephen. And eventually Paul was also martyred for Christ. Luke does not immediately re-introduce Paul in Chapter 8. Instead, he continues by telling the story of Philip spreading Gospel. Philip is not one of the twelve disciples but is one of people chosen to serve food to the widows (Acts 6:5). Here we call him an evangelist. Stephen is also chosen by the disciples to serve food, so the Holy Spirit continues to tell Philip's story after Stephen dies. Philip is a first-generation worker for the Lord, serving under the twelve disciples headed by Peter. Philip's story still falls under the category of ministry headed by Peter. Acts 9:1-31 speaks of Saul meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus. After he was blinded by a bright light, Paul received his sight when Ananias laid hands on him and prayed for him. The chapter mentions that no one would accept Saul as a genuine believer, except Barnabas (9:27). This is a foreshadowing of the fact that God wants to raise up Paul as a servant of the gospel, and that he would work together with Barnabas. This premonition comes true in Chapter 13. Chapters 9-11 continue discussing Peter's service to the Lord, and it's not until Chapter 11 that we hear that Barnabas went to Tarsus to find Saul in order to bring him to Antioch to start serving (11:15-26). Acts 11:30 mentions that Barnabas and Saul brought the donations to Jerusalem from Antioch. Chapter 12 speaks of Peter's miraculous escape from prison. Chapter 12 verse 25 mentions that Barnabas and Paul went back from Jerusalem after they had completed their service, bringing Mark back with them. In Chapter 13, Paul was then introduced formally in the text when the Holy Spirit set apart Barnabas and Saul to become apostles. There are two stories worth mentioning. The first story tells us how Paul went to Jerusalem right after being saved. He attempted to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, and did not believe that he was a disciple (9:26). Only Barnabas accepted him (9:27). These two verses are very interesting. We can see that all circumstances are under God's control. Why did the disciples not want to associate with Paul? God had a hidden purpose for this rejection. God wanted to train Paul first in the wildness. Even though Paul had been saved, God still needed to train him to know Him better and to learn to understand God's revelation. Therefore, God brought Paul into the wilderness of Arabia (Galatians 1:17). Theologians have different opinions on how long Paul stayed there. Some theologians say 14 years, some say seven years, some have other opinions. Even though we don't know the exact length of time Paul stayed in the wilderness, we know he stayed there a long time. Paul may have had a lot of time to pray and fellowship with God. Perhaps this is when he was caught up to the third heaven to receive a supernatural revelation (2 Corinthians 12:2). Maybe in the desert, God continued to work on Paul's personality to prepare him for his future ministry. It was not yet God's time for Paul to step out publicly. But God was preparing him secretly. The previous mention of Barnabas' acceptance of Paul foreshadows the later fact that Barnabas went to search for Paul at Antioch (Chapter 11). The second notable story is the story of Peter's hypocrisy from Galatians Chapter 2. When Peter came to Antioch, he would eat with the Gentiles, but after certain men came from James, he drew back and separated himself from the Gentiles, as he was afraid of those who promoted circumcision. Even Barnabas was led astray. Hence, Paul opposed Peter publicly and rebuked his hypocrisy (Galatians 2:11-13). Peter's weakness may have disqualified him from the responsibility of leadership. Plus, God was ready to bring the gospel to the Gentiles rather than strictly to the Jews. Therefore, Paul's appearance as the apostle of the Gentiles became unavoidable. Barnabas's hypocrisy showed his weakness as well, so he was also disqualified from taking on the new role of leadership. Another important story deals with the relationship between Paul and Barnabas. At first, Barnabas accepted Paul, but later, the two men had a falling out. The Bible leaves no doubt in our minds that that Barnabas was a good man (Acts 11:24). He was very helpful to Paul in his gospel work. When the teachers and prophets had fasted and prayed, the Holy Spirit set apart Barnabas and Saul to become apostles. (When Barnabas was first mentioned, Paul was still called Saul.) If Barnabas was the only one who accepted Saul when he was first saved, why did they later have a falling out? My answer is this: It is not easy to accept new people, but it is even harder to accept the fact that new people have surpassed oneself. I was taught that Barnabas and Paul had an argument about whether or not to take Mark along on the next missionary journey. Perhaps Barnabas had more problems as well, as the Bible never mentions his itinerary after this. I am not sure if this view is correct or not. But in any case, God used Barnabas to introduce Paul to the church, as Paul was God's special chosen vessel. On the other hand, we cannot look at Barnabas and Paul in terms of victory or defeat. God's grace is great, and although the Bible does not continue to follow Barnabas's missionary journeys, it doesn't necessarily mean that Paul was better than him. It only means that God's grace on Paul was greater. Paul was God's chosen vessel, and since he and Barnabas had differing opinions on ministry strategy, Barnabas had to step aside. Barnabas's mission was to bring Paul to the foreground. Now that Paul was on center stage, Barnabas's mission was accomplished. In the same way, John the Baptist's mission was to bring in Jesus, and his mission was completed when the Lord Jesus began his ministry.   Who is Judas? Verse 11 says, “And the Lord said to him, ‘Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying.'” Who is this man, Judas? The Bible does not say. But we know it is not Judas the betrayer. Personally, I think that he is a little-known figure that the Bible has never introduced before. But at an unanticipated time and place, God showed Paul what He had planned for him.   Waiting on God's timing God chose Saul in eternity, but He did not reveal himself to Saul on the first day. God was really holding out on him; he only revealed himself after Saul studied Judaism for many years. In our Christian life, we are all chosen by God, or given a certain calling or promise. God may wait a long time before he reveals your calling to you. Paul was chosen by God from the time he was in his mother's womb, but only years later, when he was on the road to Damascus, did God reveal himself to him. God revealed himself to Paul while he was at the house of Judas. God sent Ananias there to lay hands on and pray for Paul. God knows everything. He knew Paul was going to Damascus to persecute the Christians, and he knew he went to the house of Judas to pray. The great light at Damascus turned Paul from the wrong path. Ananias' prayer in the house of Judas brought Paul onto the right path. After Ananias laid hands on Paul's eyes, immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained sight. From here on out, Paul started to spread the Gospel enthusiastically in Damascus. But God's time had not yet come. Paul soon encountered persecution, and he was forced to leave Damascus and Jerusalem. He went to Caesarea and Tarsus. Later, in Acts 11:25, Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul and bring him to Antioch. Theologians say Saul left Damascus for the first time and then went to the wilderness of Arabia for some time. No matter how long Paul was in the wilderness, the experience in the wilderness was used by God Himself to train Paul and prepare him for future ministry.  Even people like Paul had to go through long periods of training. We should be encouraged that the pruning process is a normal part of God's work in his children's lives. What amazing plans God has for his people! While God was using Peter and the others in the limelight, He was also preparing Paul and others backstage. At the wave of the director's hand, Paul and his companions would come onstage. Paul definitely did not come out from nowhere; God had already been preparing him for that exact time and place. Just like the meridians in TCM I mentioned earlier, the Bible has many lines or channels, themes you can follow through entire chapters and books. The Bible has many threads of meaning and storyline that weave through the entire text. All these lines are like meridians through which the spiritual life (or “qi”) flows like a current underneath the ground. They are the breath of God (2 Timothy 3:16)! If we can find these spiritual meridians and acupuncture points while studying the Bible, it will greatly help us to understand God's word. The authors who wrote the Bible were definitely inspired by the Holy Spirit. Once you find the “channels” under the surface, you will see how the same continuous thread flows through all the books of the Bible. All the biblical authors follow a coherent storyline. When we lose sight of these channels or threads of meaning, it doesn't mean the Bible is wrong. It just means we don't yet fully understand it. In Acts 8- 9, the Bible is going through a major transition, or turning point. Paul is being introduced on the one hand, and on the other hand, Peter has not yet fully left the stage. The storyline is transitioning from the ministry of Peter to the ministry of Paul. The focus of the book of Acts is being shifted from ministry to the Jews to ministry to the Gentiles. The Lord Jesus told Paul that he would go far away to the Gentiles, because his testimony would not be accepted in Jerusalem (Acts 22:21). Just like many of us, Paul was very slow in obeying God's call. He was eager testify for the Lord Jesus in Jerusalem and other areas in Judea, but he met persecution. This forced him to make a slow and roundabout journey to Rome. At the end of the Book of Acts, he finally reached Rome. The book of Acts is the biography of the apostles, and the representatives of the apostles are Peter and Paul. Peter represents the twelve disciples; they focus on bringing the gospel to the Jews, and they are the direct fruit of Jesus' earthly ministry. Paul was the apostle who received his call to apostleship after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul's ministry focus was the Gentiles. His work and ministry are the fruit of Jesus' heavenly ministry. Jesus is still alive today, and He is working behind the scenes. The end of Chapter 7 mentions Saul briefly, and the first part of chapter 9 talks about Paul again. But the second half of Chapter 9 continues to talk about Peter's ministry, because Peter is still in the frontline of the ministry. Acts Chapter 9 is an important turning point, a watershed moment for the Book of Acts. Paul's ministry started to come over the horizon in this chapter, and came into full force in when he was anointed as apostle in chapter 13.   [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_(Chinese_medicine)

What is the 3 Box Model? Philosophies and religions both talk about the concept that we can decide how we feel about events – it's our choice on how we react.  This model takes that concept and helps you to do precisely that.  It is a framework that allows you to consider everything that has happened, is happening and may happen and supports you in deciding how you are going to react and to use it. The three box model is a framework where you can consciously frame what has, what is or will happen in your personal or professional life.  Why this is important We can spend so much time and energy trying to bury things, pretend things are different, that we are different and when we do this, all that time and energy doesn't move us forward.  It doesn't make us happier.  By taking control of what is in each box we get to choose what to spend our time on.  Important in that is the ‘we”.  We take control.  Nobody else. We get to determine what we want. We choose what will take our energy, time and focus. Will a particular situation work against you, be a constant battle to control or actually work for you? You get to choose. This self determination is a key part of Self Development. This model is a new tool in your mental tool box.  This can help you to prepare yourself for a better outcome – allow you to take more control over what is happening and what is going to happen next.  This means a more confident version of ‘You'. More authentic. A ‘You' who is spending their energy better, leading to a more successful, happier version of you.  You get to channel issues and experiences so you get better returns and a higher self confidence Stephen walks us through the model and the 3 boxes - Deny It - Fight it and Use it. When Stephen first introduced me to this model there was an immediate impact - understanding the framework allowed me to make sense of some things that I was unable to nail down before. Once we understand that there are 3 boxes with issues sitting within each it helps to make sense about some of the things that are working really well for us – and why we sometimes seem to struggle.  This understanding on its own is a confidence builder Then there is the knowledge that the boxes remain where they are – but that issues can be moved from box to box.  And you can make that happen.  You can choose which issue is something you're going to move up the chain and improve your own self confidence As you get more comfortable with the model you get to think more strategically - Which situations work against you? Be a constant battle to control? Or actually work for you? Which situations is it time to move? Which do I need to acknowledge are there? Some notes: 1 Naming – naming issues and situations is the start of objectifying them.  Once it is a a named object, it feels more controllable.  Visible. Manageable. 2 Acknowledge it – understand that it is in a box already.  Something you are already denying, fighting against or using. 3 Choose what you want to move.  There will always be something in each of the 3 boxes.  Some will remain where they are for a long time.  That's ok – you're choosing the order. Consciously. 4 One step at a time.  Don't try to jump from Deny straight to Use it – ‘Fight It' is a good staging post to get there. 5 Good things count too. Acknowledging and appreciating that good things live in the boxes too.  Don't deny your own part in your successes.  Don't fight against recognising your skills.  This will lead to a drop in your confidence and the Imposter syndrome.  Accept and Use what you did and let it fuel your next success. Any thoughts or comments let us know at podcast@coachpro.online Full Transcript at https://rhinoconsulting.nl/episode-131-three-boxes-deny-fight-or-use-it   First 10 minutes transcript below   Warren Hammond  01:07 Welcome back Podcats to another conversation with me Warren, and CEO of CoachPro Stephen Gribben. Now, this is a good one. This one is about The Three Boxes. That's the best way for me to describe it, you hear me struggling to try and come up with a decent description later. But in my head is just the three box model. Very powerful. For one it's a simple model, which we all know is always useful. This can change how you look at anything that's ever happened to you and everything that's going to happen to you. So it's an important part of the optimal appraisal process, and the whole self-development. We have the choices. The choice of whether we're going to spend energy fighting these things, or denying these things, or using these things. Not going to say too much, you'll quickly see how simple this model is but how profound its influence can be. You'll enjoy this one. There's lots of good stuff in it.   Warren Hammond  02:07 As always, there'll be some notes, we're doing a full transcript now. So you can read along, if that helps. Blogs, there's the models on the different websites. So get involved, get in touch, if there's anything else you'd like us to cover, if there's any questions that you have. Email is podcast@coachpro.online. Anyway, let's get going. Here comes cheesy music.   Warren Hammond  02:39 Today, as always, is a good topic. And how I think about this is the framework that it's described in. The three box model is how I think about it. And I use this and think about it in so many different ways. And I'm trying to think what is the perfect description for anyone listening to it. And the best I've come up with so far is this is a perfect model for better reframing of your past. Now, that's doesn't sound like the title of an album. But we'll go with it so far. So let's get to the expert, Stephen. Three box model. What is it? Explain to everybody who can't see into my head, what exactly is the three box model?   Stephen Gribben  03:32 The three box model is a framework where you can consciously frame what has, what is or will happen in your personal or professional life.   Warren Hammond  03:49 Okay, so this isn't just past then. So I've just said past. This is about today, what's happening today, what could happen tomorrow, this is about how you look at anything around you and think how do I put this into a better context?   Stephen Gribben  04:02 Yeah, it's a framework for empowering you to make that conscious choice and own where you place things that happen to you or things that you make happen in a way that has optimal benefit. So rather than things just happening to you or occurring, you get more of a sense of ownership, more of a self-determination of where that's going to go, how that's going to work for you, what you can use it for, how you're going to make that optimal. Whether it is labelled a good thing or bad thing or an okay thing to begin with emotionally, you making that conscious decision to then say I'm going to decide what I'm going to do with that. Whether that is a thing that's happened in the past, whether it's something that's happened to you just now or whether it's something that's on its way.   Warren Hammond  04:53 Okay. This is already bigger, as always. So this is anything that's going on around me, me, thinking in the self-development, consciously owning, this is the part this is going to play in my future outcome. This is how I decide how important or how I'm going to use this for whatever my future outcome is.   Stephen Gribben  05:21 Yeah, and look, this can be for the smallest practical things. I tend to first of all get to introduce this with clients, when they describe something as a Make or Break. And that's when I feel well, you really don't want to leave that chance do you?   Warren Hammond  05:37 Okay. I think of this a lot when I think back, especially about past experiences, especially bad experiences. So we're talking in sales teams and stuff, then there's a way of recontextualizing, again, another awful word, about anything awful that's happened  to us. Let's say a bad Q or a bad month, or a bad loss of a client. This is something that this model can be used to reframe it and make it better. But you're saying this is not just bad things from your past. This can be anything from today, from tomorrow, as well as from yesterday.   Stephen Gribben  06:16 I think most people would accept we naturally see, or create, rather the opportunity to learn from adversity, learn from mistakes, in order to improve things that haven't gone the way we'd wanted. I've always looked upon that and said, Well, what if we could also learn from our successes? What if we could build from a winning position? What if we could use the victory and use the great result, to learn from that also so that we can recreate and enhance that. So this is not a fix? This is a solution. This is a way of looking at the things that happen and get beyond that label of right wrong, good, bad, strong, weak, things I wanted, things that I didn't want or liked or didn't like, and saying, well,  that thing, which box is it currently in and which box do I want to start putting it in.   Warren Hammond  07:16 This is great. This goes straight to the heart, then of this whole self-development chat that we talk about is you know, the building on the strengths, that conscious ownership, there's looking at everything around you and deciding what you're going to make work for you. So where do we get started on this in the three boxes,   Stephen Gribben  07:35 First of all, as you've said this fits with self-development, and this is the 'why should you put things in boxes, first of all. There is a value in putting things in boxes because you objectify it at that stage. And therefore you can look at it more objectively, more intelligently, you can see it as a thing, rather than wrapped up into a whole mess of stuff. So what this is about in terms of self-development, this will allow you to become more self-aware that things happen and accept that things happen, good, bad, indifferent. It will give you more self-confidence and be able to say, I can take control back, I can be in charge of this, I can direct this, I can decide what box I'm going to put this in. That allows you then to develop creative self-management, so that you get things to work for you rather than you always having to work through stuff or deal with stuff. But actually your self management is putting that stuff in a way that works for you. Not always doing everything for it in the hope that it works out okay. But doing it in a way where it also then works for you. And then finally, that self-determination, where you can look at the things you have done from the past and say 'Which box am I now going to make sure I get into, you can look at the present and say okay, the box, I'm going to place this in is that box, but also for the future things that are either on their way or you want to create. This is how I'm going to use this to get to where I really want to get to, to reach my full potential and be genuinely happy and successful by being me, rather than pretending or living to other people's rules and expectations.   Warren Hammond  09:27 So the self-awareness, the self-confidence, the self-management, the self-determination, this pathway of self-development is so strong. And something you said right at the beginning, which I never thought about before in this three box model even though it's there, right in the heart of it, is the box. It's the fact that you are putting it in the box means you've labelled it, you've objectified it in some way, which then automatically means maybe you've removed some of the vagueness, emotion out of it, you've intelligently considered it. And the moment you label it, you can then put it into the box. And then suddenly, it's manageable, isn't it because you put it in a box, you've contained it in some way or another, and then your self-confidence, your self management and self-determination can kick in. So first bit of that process then is just as important. I never thought about it before is, the moment you put it in a box, that's an important part of being up in a way at the races.        

When Stephen was stoned by the religious leaders, there was a man present who completely agreed with the stoning...his name was Saul. This is the same Saul, that later became Paul, and wrote two thirds of the New Testament. He was one, if not the, greatest missionaries that ever lived. Before his conversion he wreaked havoc on the church, going from house to house, dragging men and women from their homes and putting them in jail. In Saul's (Paul's) on words he "was the worst sinner of all" but when he was giving his resume in Philippians 3. Saul (Paul) said he was "zealous for the law and followed it without fault." Really? He agreed and took part in the stoning of an innocent man and he wreaked havoc in the lives of innocent people who followed Jesus! He had the same attitude of the religious leaders; They thought they were serving God and yet they killed God Himself! How many people today claim to be followers of Christ yet they don't even know the Christ they follow!

'Tell Me The Old, Old Story' Reader: Louise Macmillan Date: 1st March 2021 Time: Passage: Acts 6:6 ------------------- Some people love history, others think it is' bunk'! Stephen, like many of his Jewish people did love history. The Jews would tell the old, old story of what God had done for them in past years over and over again. But if we read Acts 6 and 7 we see that telling God's story got Stephen into great trouble and he was eventually put to death. Why? There were many Jews who were jealous of Stephen and of the godly life and powerful works he was able to do in the name of Jesus. When Stephen was telling the Jewish leaders about parts of their own history he said these leaders were just like the hardhearted leaders of past times who killed godly prophets — these leaders in front of Stephen had indeed killed the Righteous One, Jesus. You can imagine how full of anger and hatred Stephen's audience became. Stephen said they were "stiff-necked people, ... always resisting the Holy Spirit" (Acts 7:51). You don't win friends that way! So they took Stephen out and stoned him to death. Was Stephen a failure then? Did he tell the old, old story in vain? No! You can read in Acts 7:55-59 how Jesus himself welcomed him home to heaven when he died. And from verse 58 we see that Stephen's story and Jesus's place in it obviously troubled one young man who later became one of Christ's great ambassadors. He was the Apostle Paul. So thank Go for Stephen's godly history stories!

A kinsman of the Apostle Paul, the Holy Stephen was one of the seven deacons (with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas) first appointed by the Church to minister to the people; and it pleased God to receive him as the Church's first Martyr for Christ. Read the long, beautiful and edifying account of his witness in the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 6-8. When Stephen, "full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people," (Acts 6:8), some members of a synagogue in Jerusalem came to dispute with him and, enraged by his proclamation of Christ, stoned him to death. In his death St Stephen revealed Christ's erasure of the boundary between heaven and earth, and the new communion between man and God: his face shone with the light of the Transfiguration, and he was granted a vision of Christ enthroned at the Father's right hand. His dying words were "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" (Acts 7:60).   According to holy tradition, the martyrdom of St Stephen occurred exactly a year after the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. His body was taken and secretly buried by Gamaliel, a member of the Sanhendrin and secretly a Christian.   Saint Stephen's relics were discovered by the priest Lucian in 415 following a vision. They were translated to the church built for them in Jerusalem by the Empress Eudocia, and later taken to Constantinople.   The Saint's missionary speech before his death (like that of the deacon St Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch) reminds us that those appointed to serve the Church materially are not barred, or even excused, from proclaiming the glorious Gospel of Christ.

When Stephen proposed to Ann, it came after 31 years of marriage — epitomizing a relationship that has bucked conventions from the start. Their fondest memories are intimate, eccentric, and full of trust: acting together on stage, being married by an Elvis impersonator, and a yearly tradition involving mushrooms and jalapeños. 

Few people seek to intentionally disagree. And yet, most of uswill find ourselves stuck in a puddle of contention on more than one occasion.What to do? What not to do? These are the questions explored in this episode.Chalice Lighting Words by Kenneth Patton, Read by Rev. Amy KindredMessage The Reverend Amy KindredClosing Words by Shannon Adler, Read by Stephen DownenMusic Gonna Lay Down My Sword and Shield*, African American spiritual, arr. by Mary Allen Walden (From Singing the Living Tradition, Unitarian Universalist Association, 1993)Keyboard Amy RosebushVoice Stephen Downen* We love this rousing song! When Stephen sings the third verse, "Gonna shake hands all around the world," he doesn't mean it literally right now in the era of COVID-19. He is helping us to dream of a future when we can actually reach out and touch one another.. Dear Listener,Do you love what you hear? Go to uuffpspacecoast.org and show us some love by donating online. Signed, Gratitude Always

On today’s episode, Stephen King, president and CEO of GrowthForce, joins Dr. Sabrina and her co-host, Mike Bruno, for an illuminating conversation around pricing.  Should you discount during this economic downturn? Listen in to this discussion to hear compelling reasons why you should NOT discount, and what you should be doing, instead. Top executive at a Fortune 500 company. Bootstrapped CEO. Venture-backed tech startup founder. Non-profit fundraiser. It’s safe to say Stephen King is not your traditional CPA. Stephen is president and CEO of GrowthForce, one of the nation’s largest providers of outsourced bookkeeping and controller services. Regarded as an industry thought leader by AICPA and CPA.com, his ability to visualize the future of accounting has lead GrowthForce to become one of the fastest-growing companies in America. His experience at the forefront of technology development and accounting system design spans nearly three decades. In 1995 he founded Virtual Growth, the nation’s first cloud-based accounting service, and quickly grew it into a market leader. After being acquired by Insperity, Stephen was brought on as president of Insperity’s Financial Management Services division, serving two years before leaving to build GrowthForce. He also spent seven years working at Amnesty International USA—first overseeing 300 percent growth as CFO, then raising over $20M a year as Director of Development. Stephen’s time at Amnesty reinforced his life-long commitment to giving back to the community. As a result, non-profits represent 35 percent of GrowthForce clients. Profit by Design is a Tap the Potential Production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group. Show Highlights: Business owners are feeling a lot of pressure in this new normal. Pricing is harder if you’re not confident of the value that you’re bringing. Stephen addresses the issues around discounting, then provides the math:  If you have a 40 percent gross profit and you give a 10 percent discount, you need 33 percent more sales to generate the same bottom line. If you have a 30 percent margin, you need 50% more sales to generate the same bottom line. If you have a 40 percent gross profit and you ADD 10% to your pricing, you can sell 20 percent less and make the same money.  When Stephen let an objective person price his jobs, his fees started going up.  Stephen shares some case studies and classic mistakes from clients that allow him to share their data. The accounting industry was designed for compliance.  Financial accounting is designed for external users. For example, it is your CPA’s job to help you pay as little in taxes as you’re legally allowed to, to get you through an audit, and to keep the banks happy. Management accounting is about internal users and about understanding your unit economics, the profitability on each job.  Stephen explains the benefits of automated activity-based costing and cautions against time-leakage. Things to consider to gain confidence in pricing appropriately: Stephen offers accounting system suggestions to set up reports to show you your “income minus your cost of goods sold equals your gross profit”. Your gross profit percentage is the most important number of every financial statement. This will tell you if you’re pricing right. Which clients should you fire? Which clients should you re-price? How do you spend money to make money in sales and marketing? Dr. Sabrina explains the 80/20 principle: 20 percent of your clients and customers are responsible for 80 percent of your revenue. If you focus on increasing revenue from the top 20 percent by 25 percent, you’re at choice and you can get rid of 80 percent of your clients and customers. One mistake is to think that your biggest account is your best client. When you have the appropriate margin in your pricing you are able to run a much more simplified, streamlined business. Whatever you do, don’t discount your services during this economic downturn. Don’t make decisions based on fear. You need to have an attitude of gratitude. Surround yourself with people who have a positive mindset and who are looking for growth. Links and Resources: Taking care of yourself is important now more than ever. Are you ready to take your life back from your business?  The FIRST STEP is taking our Assessment at: https://www.tapthepotential.com/assessment NEXT, meet with our Success Team Lead to debrief your results. THEN, join our Better Business, Better Life™ program! Get the Book!! How to Hire the Best - Contractors Editionwww.TapThePotential.com/book How to Hire the Best Toolkit www.TapThePotential.com/Toolkit Get Your 2020 Action Planner Now! The Pumpkin Plan Action Planner 2020 https://www.tapthepotential.com/planner Dr. Sabrina’s WEBSITE Dr. Sabrina’s PODCAST - PLEASE RATE & REVIEW! Profit by Design, a Tap the Potential production in collaboration with Small Business Consulting Group For Resources & Tools from Sponsors - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com Subscribe & Share Podcasts! - https://www.profitbydesignpodcast.com/podcasts/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfitByDesign/ Calm App Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Are You Leading with Love or Know Another Entrepreneur Who Is Being a Gift from Their Gifts During This Time? Please use hashtags #leadwithlove #beagift and we will be re-posting these social media posts! Books Mentioned: The Pumpkin Plan: A Simple Strategy to Grow a Remarkable Business in Any Field by Mike Michalowicz Connect with Stephen! Stephen’s Website - Check Out His Evergreen COVID-19 Resources! Stephen’s LinkedIn Stephen’s Twitter

The Old Testament historical psalms offer plenty of examples in which writers review the shared history of the Israelites for some special theological or ethical purpose. Something similar occurs when 1 and 2 Chronicles retell 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings, so as to focus on the southern kingdom and on certain theological perspectives. This form of address continues in certain New Testament sermons. Paul in Pisidian Antioch begins the historical recital with the Exodus, and aligns his storytelling priorities to show that Jesus really is the promised Messiah (Acts 13:16ff). Here in Acts 7, Stephen, the first Christian martyr, begins with Abraham.What are the advantages of this approach? And what does Stephen, in particular, set out to prove?One of the advantages is that historical recital gains the attention of the audience — and in this case the audience was overtly hostile and needed calming. Their personal identity was bound up with their national history; initially, at least, this recital was bound to be soothing, to establish common ground, to show that Stephen was within the pale.A second advantage lay in the fact that the shift that Stephen was trying to establish in the minds of his Jewish audience was big enough that it could only be adopted within the framework of a changed world-view. In other words, not only Jesus’ identity, but even more, his death and resurrection, could not finally be accepted by thoughtful Jews unless they perceived that this is what Scripture teaches — and this point could not easily be established unless it was anchored in the very fabric of the Old Testament storyline. So the story had to be told and retold so as to highlight the most important points.One of the points that Stephen makes as he retells the story emerges slowly at first, then faster and faster, and then explosively. That point is the repeated sin of the people. When Stephen begins the story, at first there is no mention of Israel’s evil. Then the wickedness of Joseph’s brothers is briefly mentioned (Acts 7:9). Corporate wickedness re-surfaces in Moses’ day (Acts 7:25-27, 35). Now the pace quickens. The people refused to obey Moses “and in their hearts turned back to Egypt” (Acts 7:39). The golden calf episode is brought up, and likened to idolatry in the time of Amos (Acts 7:42-43). We skip ahead to David and Solomon, and the insistence that God cannot be domesticated by a building. Finally there is the explosive condemnation not only of past generations of Israelites who rejected God and his revelation, but also of all their contemporary Spirit-resisting descendants (Acts 7:51-53).What bearing does this point have on the lessons we should draw from the biblical history? This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Finding the Right Blend of Personalization and Automation In Outbound Sales   There has to be a balance between personalization and automation in outbound sales. The question is, how do you keep the right blend of the two? In this episode, we'll discuss how to personalize the method of automation.   Stephen Lowisz always says that he sucks at everything except sales. He was 16 when he started selling consulting solutions. He didn't make any money at first but even with no formal training he was able to study the process and he made his first 1.1 at 19. When Stephen started sales, it was old-school smile-and-dial. It was a time of manual effort - finding people, getting their data, putting it on SalesForce, and calling. Things are different now.   The lack of interest in effective outreach Outbound sales isn't necessarily viewed as appealing. The appeal comes later when you're collecting the check. Outbound sales is considered spam because we often get automated messages from a variety of sources. Many sales teams don't realize there is a right and wrong way of sending out emails.    The balance between personalization and automation  Executing Stephen's philosophy of making outbound more personal is executed by taking a group of people that are almost identical in persona. Once they are selected he then communicates with the group as a specific persona and it helps make the message more personal even if it's being automated to a specific group. In his company, they sell behavioral analytics to predict sales team performance within organizations and most of their products are focused on HR. They are good clients but they are not a group where persona can be defined.   When he talks to a small group of people who exhibit the same persona he can get very personal with them. Most salespeople approach an individual saying, “Hey I'm Stephen from Quality Agents. I run a performance solution and I have behavioral analytics …”  and on and on, making it all about them and their products.  Stephen has a different approach. He'll say, “Look, running HR, essentially being the CEO of people in a fast-moving tech company with ever-changing needs, is really, really difficult. I get to align with HR leaders like yourself, to help them grow and scale and align their teams and I want to swap some insight and ideas.”  He's able to make it about them and shows up to serve and partner.    Automate the activity and the task Stephen suggests that you can automate the activity and the task well. You can send a sequence of automated emails and then do the same thing with LinkedIn where you do voicemail drops.   Another tip to staying personal is by automating the task. In earlier years, sales had no automation. Everything was manually and there was a need for a methodology. Even with automation, however, we still need methodology in sales today. Without specific steps, you can end up working harder without working smarter. There are many tools to do this but it's when you have a sequence and methodology that you are able to optimize your sales process.    The approach  Stephen created an e-book called Sales Code which offered a different mentality around sales. The goal of salespeople is to set up an appointment and make a deal; however, it is also equally important to pique the emotional curiosity of your prospects. This is what outbound sales is. It's about piquing not just the product or service interest but also emotional curiosity.   To create a balance between automation and personalization, Stephen suggests beginning with a personal approach. Once they have an emotional investment, it is more likely appointments will be made. When that's done you can move them through email automation and start connecting with them via LinkedIn automatically. After that, a personal conversation.   Cold-calling isn't dead  Cold-calling may not be scalable but it's also not dead. It's a good idea to warm-up your prospects with a few LinkedIn touches or emails. Depending on the size of your business, you can also use Facebook. Generally, it takes 7 - 12 touchpoints before someone will meet. Remember that prospects are different from each other so spend a lot of time nurturing the relationship using a lot of different avenues. Be professionally persistent without hounding your prospects.   Cold-calling is a catalyst to get a response via other mediums. More often than not, people won't call you back but if you give them the right opportunity and nudge them in a professional way, they will respond. Others misconstrue formality with professionalism. Stephen uses an informal approach but he tailors his message. His goal is to talk to people on a peer-to-peer level. He is professional but for him, taking a formal approach doesn't work as well.    It's very easy to become unoriginal in sales if you just follow the strategies of other people. It's good to take into account what successful people have done but do it in a way that is authentic and unique to you, and to your client.  The formal kind of market According to Stephen, the European market can be very formal in the way that exchanges are made. He trains ways that conversations can be professional but still be conversational. If you communicate on the side of formality, you may try adjusting your approaches to best suit your client.    Just remember to create a very niche and specific persona. Craft a custom message to that persona and take that same exact message and apply it to 100 people. Create a personal message and slightly back it up just enough so that you can automate it.    “Finding the Right Blend of Personalization and Automation In Outbound Sales” episode resources  Connect with Stephen and know more about Qualigence via his LinkedIn account.  If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald directly. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns.  This episode is brought to you in part by Crmble, the easy-peasy CRM for Trello that helps you manage your contacts and leads without investing in complicated solutions, sync all your data, manage custom fields, and get powerful reporting on your sales. Try Crmble now for free at www.crmble.com/tse. This course is also brought to you in part by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It's a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. It will help them elevate their sales game. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can go and visit www.thesalesevangelist.com/closemoredeals also call us at (561) 570-5077.  We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings to every episode you listen to.  You can also read more about sales or listen to audiobooks on Audible and explore this huge online library. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.

How to find and earn your level 10 opportunity. This is the first half of a presentation I gave at Stephen Larsen’s OfferMind event. On today’s episode Russell shares a presentation from OfferMind about how he founded Clickfunnels and the journey it took to get there. Here are some of the amazing thing you will hear in part 1 of the presentation: Hear a funny story about potato guns being shipped to a hotel where an event was held, after the event was already over. Find out why even though family and friends were less than enthusiastic about all Russell’s new ideas, he kept talking about them. See why it took Russell more than 130 funnels before he created Clickfunnels. So listen here to part 1 of Russell’s Level 10 Opportunity presentation from OfferMind. ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody? It’s Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Secrets podcast. Right now I am actually in the middle of our Two Comma Club Live event. I’m having so much fun. We’ve got 5000 people registered, had about 3500 people on live for the last day and a half straight. I’m on lunch break and I realized I didn’t have my podcast recorded for this week, so I was kind of scrambling, what would be the best thing I could give you guys? And I remember there’s a presentation I did at Stephen Larsen’s OfferMind, and it’s not the whole presentation. But the very beginning I kind of went on a rant, but I kind of went off because earlier that day I heard a bunch of people talking about, “Looking for my Clickfunnels, my big opportunity, my….” whatever it is, you know.  And I kind of wanted to just talk about that. How do you find your level 10 opportunity? How do you find the big opportunity that’s for you, that was created for you? Because a lot of times people are waiting for that to hit them, and it’s like, no, no, no you have to understand that you have to be in momentum and moving forward for those things to come to you. And I kind of shared my journey about how I came into Clickfunnels and how it became a thing. So I’m going to share that presentation, it’s about 30 minutes long, so we’re going to break it over two episodes. So this is episode number one of two about how to find your level 10 opportunity. I’m so happy to have you guys here in Boise with us. Has the last day and a half been amazing so far? Very cool. I just want to take a moment and just acknowledge Stephen Larsen, or Steve Larsen, whatever he goes by today. He was always “Stephen” in the office, just so you know, because the way he spelled it always changed. But it’s crazy to look back and a couple Funnel Hacking Lives ago he bootstrapped  his way, I’m sure you guys have heard this story, to get there. He slept in the lobby. Two days after that was in my office asking for a job. And then fast forward now a couple of years, was able to bring 650 people to Boise, Idaho on a week beginning, during a holiday, talking about offers for crying out loud. This is insane that you guys are all here. So let’s give him a huge round of applause. I wouldn’t have believed it. So cool. I got so many fun things to talk about today. I don’t have a normal presentation. Normally I have a million slides and everything like that. Today I want to do more storytime and I want to tell you guys some  stories, have some fun, show you some cool stuff from the book that’s coming out, and a couple other cool things. So that’s kind of the game plan. But Katherine Jones just messaged me a few minutes ago, I’m not sure where you’re at in here, right here, hey! And she’s like, “If I came all the way to Boise, Idaho and you don’t tell at least one potato gun story, I’m going to be severely upset.” So I didn’t have a potato story planned, but then I just thought of one a second ago. So how many of you guys want a potato gun story real quick? Anyone want to go shoot potato guns after this? That’s the upsell, we’re doing that tomorrow for anyone….just kidding. No, it’s funny. We did a family event like a month ago in Denver. Who was at the family event with us? And we were trying to get all these potato gun kits shipped there to be able to show the kids and actually do that, and it’s funny because I haven’t sold my potato gun DVD for a decade now, and we used to have this supplier that would drop ship potato gun kits afterwards. So like a week before the event I was like, “We should see if they still drop ship potato gun kits, we’ll get them shipped to the event and it will be amazing.” and this whole thing. So I’m getting Melanie to try and call them, they have no answer, they won’t return our emails, but they still have an order button on their site. So we bought them at wholesale prices, had them shipped directly to the hotel in Denver. And Melanie told me, and Melanie told me yesterday, “I just got the shipping notice. They finally shipped them.” So there’s a whole bunch of potato gun kits getting shipped to Denver right now. So if any of you guys are there, you can just pick them up. So that’s the potato gun story I’ve got for you guys today. Maybe at Funnel Hacking Live we’ll do some more potato gun building or something. A whole extra late night session. Anyway, there you go. When Stephen first asked me to speak here, the first thing he did was he tried to make an irresistible offer. Did you guys hear about this already? So he went through the whole process, and then we talked and I’m like, ‘What should I talk about?” and we kind of had a whole direction I wanted to go. So I kind of started initially building my thoughts around that, but if anyone’s been watching my instagram, the last month of my life I’ve been deep trying to get this Traffic Secrets book done, and it’s been a lot. And it’s top of mind on a whole bunch of, it’s just there. So I’m going to kind of do both. I’m going to talk about the stuff I was going to talk about, but also go into Traffic Secrets because there’s parts I’ve never taught before that I just want to share. Again, I’ve never taught them publically, so they might come out really bad, it could be a complete flop, but I’m not getting paid, so it’s cool. I’m just kidding. Anyway, so I’m going to start at the very beginning. Initially when he first asked me to speak I really wanted to talk about, because I think it’s applicable to everyone in your journey. And I’m curious right now, how many of you guys have been in this entrepreneur game, trying to make money on the internet, this whole world for more than 5 years? Okay, how many of you guys have been less than 5 years? Less than 4 years? Less than 3? 2? Less than 1 year? How many of you guys found out about this a couple of days ago, you’re pumped? This is awesome. Can you imagine this being your first introduction? I think sometimes we come into these rooms, I know when I first got in there, man, it’s 15, 16 years now when I first learned about this world and I came into it. And I remember going and hearing all these people talking about stuff, and they’re sharing numbers and stats and I think I had this envisioned in my head that I was going to come in and like 5 days later I was going to be a kajillionaire and that was going to be how it worked, because all these other people were doing it. And I think a lot of people have that believe as well. Sometimes they come in and start working and doing the process, and if they don’t get it right away, they fall away from it, which is frustrating and it’s hard. So I wanted to kind of just talk about my journey for a little bit because every time I meet somebody, I always get people who are like, “I’ve known you ever since the beginning.” And I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, when was that?” and they’re like, “Back when you did the Dotcom Secrets book. Ever since the very beginning.” And I’m like, “There’s 10 years that I was doing this before the Dotcom Secrets book came out.” Or “All the way back to Microcontinuity.” Who here remembers microcontinuity? I was like, “I was 6 years in when that came out.” I’ve been doing this for a long, long, long, long time. There’s been a whole bunch of ups and downs. And one of the quotes that is in the new Traffic Secrets book, this is actually the Dotcom Secrets book. We just taped the cover to it. Anyway, oh we totally did. I had someone grab it and they’re like, “I took pictures of it inside.” And I was like, “Yeah, it’s literally Expert Secrets so…” anyway, but in the Traffic Secrets book, as I was writing it and researching and trying to figure out the right stuff, there was a quote and actually from an entrepreneur that lives here in Boise. Anyone here ever heard of ConvertKit? So Nathan Barry is the founder of ConvertKit, he’s a local Boisean as well, a really cool guy. Someone I have a ton of respect for. And I was writing the chapter on publishing and I’m not going to talk a lot about publishing today, but he had this quote that I ended up putting in the book that just meant the world to me. And I wanted to kind of start this way, as I start this presentation because I want this to be the thing that’s in your guys’ mind as we’re going through this journey together. So it’s part of an email he wrote, and the subject line was “Endure long enough to get noticed.” And he said, “How many great TV shows have you discovered in season 3 or later? I started watching Game of Thrones after they had released 5 seasons. Pat Flynn had released over 100 episodes of his podcast before I even knew it existed. I discovered Hard Core History years after Dan Carlin had started producing it. This is such a common experience. There’s so much content being produced that we can’t possible discover it all. So instead we wait for the best content to float to the surface after time. “Step one in building an audience is to create great content. And step two is to endure long enough to get noticed. Seth Godin is very generous with his time, and will appear on almost any relevant podcast, but you have to have recorded at least 100 episodes first. His filter is creators who have showed they’re willing to show up consistently for a long time.” So when I read that I was just like, man, it’s crazy. And I was talking to my wife about this the other day because it’s still, this whole thing is insanely weird to us, because this started 15, 16 years ago when we first got married. And I was sitting there and I’m learning about all this nerdy marketing stuff, and funnels, and we didn’t even call them funnels back then. But I was learning about stuff and direct response marketing and reading books about headlines and hooks, and all these things, and I was geeking out and I would try to talk to people about it. I’d talk to my friends, and my family, and my parents, and my brothers, and everyone, trying to explain it to them. And you’re like, for me it’s the most exciting thing in the world. I’d explain it to them, I’d go through and they look at me like, “Oh, that sounds really nice.” How many of you guys have friends or family when you started talking about this kind of stuff, they’re just like, “Oh.” You’re like, “Do you not understand what I’m talking about?” and I freak out, “This guy did this, and this person did this.” I’m telling them story after story after story of all these people, all the people that I saw on other stages telling their story. I’d tell their stories and they’re like, ‘Oh, that’s really nice.” I’m like, “How are you guys not getting this? How are you missing the energy behind this? What am I doing wrong to convey this?” And I would talk about it over and over and over again and nobody seemed to care. But I cared. It was so exciting for me. So after that I started talking louder, and eventually I had a couple of kids, I was still going to Boise State just down the road, and I had a couple of kids in my classes who started listening and they’re like, “That is really, that’s really cool.” And I’d tell them about them and they got excited and I told other people, and so many people never heard me. I was speaking but they never heard me. I kept speaking, and speaking and eventually a couple people started hearing, and then a couple more started hearing. But it was slow. And the first decade of me doing this, the groups were not ever big. In fact, the last event I did before Funnel Hacking Live, which was probably about 10 years ago, so probably about 7 or 8 years in I did an event. And we had I think 300 ish people signed up for it. And I was super excited. We did it down in Salt Lake, we drove me and our tiny team, we drove down there and we showed up and less than a hundred actually showed up after they bought tickets. And I’m in this room, just like, how is this so hard? This is the most exciting thing in the world to me and I can’t get people excited. But I kept talking and kept talking and kept talking because I was passionate about it. Okay, if I would have done this because I thought other people were going to get passionate about it, it would have withered up on the vine a long time ago. But I kept talking and so it’s so fascinating to me today that there’s 650 people in Boise on a week beginning during a holiday talking about offers for crying out loud. This is insane. We’re going to have 5000 people at Funnel Hacking Live, all talking about funnels and about all these crazy things that are so exciting. That people are buying books, when I wrote this first book, man, I can’t tell you how scared I was. How many of you guys have ever written a book before? Anyone ever heard, do you guys know Ryan Holladay? He’s one of my favorite authors right now. He is going to be speaking at Funnel Hacking Live, I’m so excited. So he’s written some amazing books, but my favorite of all his books is a book called Perennial Seller, which is a whole book about how you create content that lasts beyond the moment. He talked about a whole bunch of examples of movies, movies that last forever like Star Wars. It’s just going forever. Then you have other ones that make a ton of money and then they die. And in the book he talks about Star Wars, like names some lines from Star Wars, everyone can list off some lines, because the movie is a Perennial Seller. But he says, the highest grossing movie at the time was Avatar. And he said, “Can anyone think of a single sentence from Avatar?” can any of you guys give me a quote from Avatar? See, I didn’t even know that. We got one person who remembers a line from Avatar. Highest grossing movie, but it died. Friends was the same way. Friends is an amazing show, but when it ended it ended. Seinfeld has lived on. So what seems to work that lasts, and what doesn’t last. And he talks about that, it’s an amazing book called Perennial Seller. And again, he’s going to be talking at Funnel Hacking Live about how to create art that lasts beyond. Its not just for books, but art, movies, courses, whatever your thing is. How do you create stuff that lasts beyond yourself, which is something that I study because I don’t know, I’m in the phase of my life where I’m obsessed with the legacy of this whole thing. How do you do that? One thing he talked about in the book is how interesting it is with creators where when you create something you go into private. Like when I’ve been writing these books or doing whatever, I’m in private in my own house studying, learning, reading, geeking out, but then when you make it public it’s like, it goes for me from this private thing to this public thing, and the fear of rejection is like the scariest thing in the world. So I remember putting this out and being so scared. But I was so passionate, my heart and soul and a decade of my life went into this, and put it out there. And I remember sending it to a couple of my friends and just  having so much anxiety like, “What if they read this and they hate it or they don’t like it? This is so important to me.” We put it out there, and luckily they liked it. In fact, Rich Schefren, how many of you guys know Rich Schefren? He was the one I was most scared to read it. That dude’s read every book on planet earth like 400 times. In fact, there’s a video of him on YouTube that’s worth watching. He shows his book writing process, he buys a book, he rips the binding off of it. Excuse me, first off he reads it all, highlights it. Then he cuts the binding off of it, he scans the whole thing, he sends the scan to one of his Filipino workers and then takes all the highlighted sections and writes them into a PDF. And then he’s done that for like, I don’t know, 7000 books over time, and then every morning he wakes up like, “What am I going to study today?” He’s like, “Copywriting. These are the 30 best copywriting books of all time.” Plugs in his highlights into like an iPad, jumps on the treadmill and he’ll read 30 books in the morning on whatever topic he wants to do that day. The dude’s obsessed, and he has a whole video showing the process. It’s the coolest thing in the world. I remember sending him the book and I’m just like, “If Rich hates it, I am done. I’m walking away from this whole thing.” And I remember afterwards he called me and he’s like, ‘Dude, your book…” I’m like, “Yeah…” he’s like, “It’s really good.’ I’m like, “Oh my gosh, are you serious?” that feeling. So I’m sure a lot of you guys have ever felt that or are going to feel it, it’s scary. Especially if you’re fired up, you’re excited about the next thing, the offer you’re going to create, all this stuff. But as you get in the creation mode and start putting it out there, there’s always going to be that fear of like, “I’m going to give it to the world and what if they reject it?” So that’s just, that’s going to be happening. But I wanted to kind of step back on my journey and I want to talk about all this stuff that I tried. In fact, I printed this out before I showed up here. Who here in this room thinks they made the most funnels. And not like a quick create funnel, and a demo funnel, and you have 8000 in your account. Who here has built more than 10 funnels? Built, launched, live, were pushed out into the world, traffic was sent to them? Who has built more than 20 funnels? More than 30 funnels? 40? 50? 60? 70? Anyone more than 70?  Alright, okay I was able to find 131. Not just funnels that I played with a little bit, that we built, pre-Clickfunnels in Photoshop and Frontpage. That we built, created, launched and went live. Here’s the first couple of links right here, these are the next ones here, the next ones here, next ones here, next ones here. Every one of these is a funnel we’ve created, built, launched. My designers used Photoshop and I used Frontpage, because I could use Frontpage. In fact, I used Frontpage all the way until Clickfunnels launched, for my nerds out there. They’re like, “What about Dreamweaver?” I couldn’t figure out Dreamweaver. I used Frontpage and that’s all I ever did, and then Clickfunnels. But these are them, 131 funnels that I could find and I think there’s more. I’m going to try to eventually get them all and put them all in chronological order. But that’s how many funnels I created over a decade and a half before I created Clickfunnels. I share this with you guys for a reason because so many of you guys are looking at me and saying, “Oh my gosh, Russell created Clickfunnels, now he’s making hundreds of millions of dollars, this is so cool.” It didn’t happen overnight, by any stretch of the imagination. It happened because I kept doing it and kept doing it. I had an idea after idea, after idea, after idea. Most of you guys don’t have your big idea yet. You may think you do, but you don’t. All these ideas, every single one of these things I thought was my big idea. I put my blood, sweat and tears into it. Every single one of these things took months to be able to create, write the copy, do the design, get the thing. It was a labor of love every single time and most of them didn’t even work. I’m like, “how did that not work? It’s the greatest idea I ever had. Potato guns, seriously! It’s going to be huge.” Of all sorts of stuff. Someday it will be fun to do a whole presentation and show you guys the iterations of like, “I had this idea and this is why. And this one and this one.” It would take days though, just to go through them all. But that’s what I had to go through. And on this journey as I’m doing this, I don’t really know where I’m going. All I know is I’m just going. I’m moving. Momentum forward, right. How many of you guys feel like that sometimes? I don’t really know where I’m going, I’m just moving forward right now hoping something good happens. That’s good. I don’t know what it is, there’s something about motion and movement and forward progress, as you do that, God, the universe, whatever you want to call it starts rewarding you 4 things. As I was moving forward I’m like, “This is the greatest idea.” Started doing it, and it’s like, “Ah, it kinda sucks.” But all the sudden, that door opened, I met that person, I found this thing. And I start moving, the next thing. I try this and I try this, and I try this and all these things in this journey started, as I was moving forward, new ideas, new opportunities, new people came into my world that made it possible.

When Stephen faced the Sanhedrin prior to his martyrdom, he schooled the religious leaders by reciting God's plan from the days of Abraham to the present. How did he know these stories? Certainly the Holy Spirit inspired this sermon, but Stephen also was obviously well-learned. As a church we seek to equip and disciple each generation for the glory of God and our good.

On this special segment of Client Convos on the ROI Online Podcast, Steve chats with Stephen Eoff about the importance of having a digital presence in today's fast-paced world, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.Stephen Eoff is the current owner of Jack Tyler Engineering, a third-generation family-run business. Back in the '60s, Stephen's grandfather Jack Tyler started the company with an engineering mindset. His mission: provide top-of-the-line equipment and repair services to municipal, industrial, and commercial operations. When Stephen's father, Sherman, married into the family, he started working in the business as well, eventually becoming an owner in '92.One of the interesting things about Stephen's story is that he found his passion at home, but he had to leave home to realize it. Stephen grew up in the business and felt comfortable working alongside his family, but his father talked him into working out in the world instead. There, while studying engineering and working in the field until he turned 30, Stephen realized how much he loved working for Jack Tyler Engineering. It was more than just supporting the family. It was his passion.While he studied engineering, he found the sales aspect of running a business to be much more interesting. Stephen preferred to spend his time talking with people than working behind a computer. It's a skill that, to his surprise, ended up working to his favor. When he came to take over the family business, it became clear that Jack Tyler Engineering needed a strong salesAs a business owner, Stephen recognized a problem many of us entrepreneurs have to face sooner or later: the business wasn't built to scale. The world has changed, and the word-of-mouth strategies that worked for Sherman and Jack used weren't standing the test of time. The people he worked with now expected the company to have a strong digital presence. It was a kick in the gut since Jack Tyler Engineering didn't even have a CRM at the time. So Stephen did some digging into the world of marketing and discovered "Building a StoryBrand" by Donald Miller. That discovery led him to ROI Online, where he learned how to build a digital business foundation that helped him grow his business even during a pandemic. Today, he's continuing to create the pieces his business needs to secure the right talent, keep vendors happy, and maintain customers' trust.Stephen Eoff is the owner of Jack Tyler Engineering:https://www.jteng.com/To learn more about StoryBrand, pick up your copy of Donald Miller's book, Building a StoryBrand, by clicking this link.And you can get a shiny copy of The Golden Toilet on Amazon here:https://amzn.to/2X3NKlB. Listen for FREE when you sign up for a 30-Day Trial Membership with AudibleThinking of starting your own podcast? Buzzsprout's secure and reliable posting allows you to publish podcasts online. Buzzsprout also includes full iTunes support, HTML5 players, show statistics, and WordPress plugins. Get started using this link to receive a $20 Amazon gift card and to help support our show!Support the show (https://cash.app/$stevemfbrown)

When Stephen was in school, his hand was always raised. A mind brimming with ideas, a packed schedule because he wanted to be involved in everything, an appetite for challenge. Today, Stephen is in college, pursuing a career in aerospace engineering — and we’re speaking with him and the teacher of his elementary gifted program, about what such programs can offer students.Why such programs are so helpful for gifted studentsWhere things get tough for gifted students — and where such programs fit in as schools work to serve students of all academic abilitiesA look at one district’s gifted program and the difference it continues to make in Stephen’s life, years after graduation

Join your Host Sarah Stephenson & Co Host Mike Stephenson as they talk horror, science fiction & fantasy movies, TV series & books past, present & future. In this episode we talk about the remake movie House on Haunted Hill (1999). A millionaire with theatrical tendencies, Stephen Price (Geoffrey Rush) invites a number of people to stay in a vast creepy building that used to be an insane asylum. Stephen, accompanied by his bitter wife, Evelyn (Famke Janssen), offers a million dollars to anyone who can stay the whole night without leaving out of fear. When Stephen and Evelyn become trapped with their guests, they quickly realize that the house really is haunted -- and the spirits dwelling within are very angry. WARNING may contain a few spoilers’ alerts. So if you haven’t seen the film, yet please go watch the movie NOW… BOYS ‘N’ GHOULS FILM REVIEW PODCAST comes to you every Monday & Wednesday. Next episode 11th May, 2020. For your daily review go to: Podbean - https://boysnghoulsfilmreviewpodcast.podbean.com/ Anchor - https://anchor.fm/boysnghoulsfilmreview Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/3xrXE8Wj6ToYNgK3ahAu0a RadioPublic - https://radiopublic.com/boys-n-ghouls-film-review-podcast-G4gAyD Breaker - https://www.breaker.audio/boys-n-ghouls-film-review-podcast Visit our Merchandise Shop here: https://blackcatfilmprod.storenvy.com/ Thanks for watching. Don’t forget to LIKE, COMMENT & SUBSCRIBE! ****CONTACT DETAILS**** Website: https://www.blackcatfilmproductions.com/ Shop: https://blackcatfilmprod.storenvy.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/boysnghouls/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bcfp14/?ref=bookmarks Twitter: https://twitter.com/blackcatfilmpr2 Business Inquiries: blackcatfilmproductions736@gmail.com

When Stephen was brought before those who opposed his message in Acts 7, he made a powerful speech, empowered by the Holy Spirit.  This message examines why that speech has a lot to teach us about who God is, and how we are to worship Him today.

In Episode #5, Camille and Tanya explore the role of community, both familial and extended and how it shapes our identities. Close friends for two decades, these friends explore their starkly contrasting experiences around community (or lack thereof that impacted them well into adulthood.  From Farmers Markets to Local theater events, they wonder how a deeper community can and will unfold in the current climate of isolation as we have all been called to "stay at home." Their conversation drifts from Camille's famous literary neighbor in Portland, Oregon to Tanya's first acting class in the D.C. area, to the 12 Steps inclusiveness and how these things all weave together to create individual and collective experiences of community. On building community: "I think more and more of us are called to walk back and forth on that bridge between perceived inside and perceived outside." -Camille Adair   Episode transcript   [00:00:01] Welcome to episode number five of Restoring the Culture. This is Tanya and I'm here with Camille today, and we're going to be speaking about restoring community and Camille's gonna start us off with the quote.    [00:00:16] This quote is from a book called Blue Moon over Thurmon Street by Ursula Gwinn. And the quote is by a man named Homer Medica, who she has a photograph of.    [00:00:29] In this book, everybody that I grew up with has moved away, not out of town, across town, mostly, but moved away.    [00:00:42] So beautiful and we were just talking about being in our homes during this time. You know, whether you're listening to this and we're all still in quarantine all over the world or we've moved out of it. We're recording this podcast about ten, twelve days in here in New Mexico. Something like that, since most of us have started started to self-quarantine. And then the governor gave an order later earlier this week. And Camille and I were talking about community in a time when we're all in isolation. But yet community is springing up. And it let us go back to talking about how we grew up a little bit. We didn't go too far in the conversation. But Camille, can you tell us about this quote and about your relationship with the author? And like growing up in that I can talk a little bit about because we have such good contract sticks start, right?    [00:01:34] Sure. I was I lived next door to Ursula Gwin when I was growing up. Not for a long time, but for a couple of years. And I used to play with her son and I would put my mom's blue eyeshadow on and I would go over and hop around in the backyard. And I remember she would look at me and say, you're such a pretty bunny. So I have such fond memories of her and that time. And living on Thurman's Street in Portland, Oregon, in a house that was four stories and had an intercom system. And basically we have like four families living there. So my family, we had one floor and then another family had another floor. And it was really such a different time. And it makes me think about. Community. You know what it was like being born in the mid 60s, and for me, growing up in a counterculture family and what community was like for me growing up in contrast to what it was like for you growing up.    [00:02:42] Well, let me ask you this before I get into my story a little bit. What was community like for you growing up? Like, who were the players? What did it feel like? How did you experience community like in your family and in your town? In Portland, in your city?    [00:02:58] My mom had really good friends. So I remember there was like a feeling of a lot of fun and activity. And I had very young parents. There was a lot of social activism at the time going on. I mean, I remember a lot of the unrest during Watergate and my mom was involved in like social marches and things like that. I also was a latchkey kid, and so I spent a lot of time by myself. And, you know, I made friends with a bus driver in Portland. And so I instead of being home by myself, at the end of the day, oftentimes I would get on the time at bus in Portland and I would do his whole route with him. And no one knew where I was. Were you phones? I was like in the second and, you know, I would get off. And there was this show called The Ramblin Rod Show in Portland. And I would get off and I would just wander in because they had birthday parties. Right. Were they people would reserve and you would get on the Ramblin Rod show and so they would do cartoons. But like on the you know, in between cartoons, the Sky Ramblin Rod would interview kids in the audience. And I remember a couple of times wandering in there and saying and just saying, can I be on the show? And I think they felt sorry for me. So they would let me on the show or I would get off the bus driver would have him let me off. And Fred Meyers and I remember remember those some small balls, like a cartoon that was like a milk carton. And I would do that. I mean, whoppers. They were whoppers. You're right. And I remember sitting on this like brick wall and people watching and eating walkers. And that was a different time. Nobody knew where I was. It was like in a way, the world was my community. And I think, you know, we're the last of that generation that had that kind of freedom. So there was a lot of freedom, not a lot of boundaries, not a lot of container. And then when my family moved to a rural town in Oregon, then the community changed. And it was very much a tight knit people sharing, you know, produce from their gardens. And the counterculture families really bonded together. You know, and in this town, you were either like from a logging family or farming family or you were from a counterculture family. So that definitely created a lot of identity in its own way in this tiny little town. I want to hear. Oh, I know. I mean, I I've heard your stories about what it was like for you walking in and having a maid and being able to let your coat slip off and.    [00:05:44] Well, I mean, yeah, we couldn't have grown up in more different families, a family. Just to give her an idea. Talking about Watergate and all, one of my first very clear conversations that I remember with my grandmother was she walked in the room and she was crying.    [00:06:00] And I said, what's wrong, nanny? And she said, I'm so upset for Mrs. Nixon. This is so unfair.    [00:06:09] This is just terrible what they're doing to Mr. President and Mrs. Nixon.    [00:06:15] I mean, my grandmother would choose the she was the president of the Ladies Republican Club of Maryland for like decades. And then the rest of the time, she and my grandfather lived in Beirut, Lebanon.    [00:06:28] And. And so that was one thing that was interesting. And they were very politically conservative. And, you know, and I was an only child. And we lived on, oh, 80 or 90 acres out in Maryland outside of d._c. But I had my freedom was in the woods and my animals were my community. I was an only child. I rarely got to see other children. So I was very afraid of them. I was very shy. And like when I hear your adventures on the bus, I'm just so envious.    [00:07:02] I'm like, I'm like, God, you could just get on. And like, you know, I create sort of your own adventures and experiences and community. And my the way I reacted was, well, I know I became an artist because of my early childhood. I became a writer. I would write poems all the time. I would write short stories. I got a lot of validation of my family from that. And yes, in Beirut, my my family had, you know, all Americans were kind of treated like royalty abroad back then, especially in certain cultures. And so they were in Beirut. And before that, they lived in Pakistan, in Karachi. That's when my mom so, you know, graduated high school.    [00:07:46] But. It was sort of America through that lens, though. White supremacy and hierarchy. And and there's a lot of shadow in that world. Right. There's a lot of price one pays in these sort of with the global elite.    [00:08:11] And my family wound up being like at the top of that food chain.    [00:08:16] You know, we're connected with, you know, and very involved with diplomats and and and and the top politicians in any country in various countries.    [00:08:31] And my my sense of community as a child who's being very alone and isolated.    [00:08:37] And it's easy on you because I was, too. So we have such different stories.    [00:08:41] But I was very lonely as a kid in spite of yourself inside of myself. Totally. So, I mean, I that's why I think I fell in love with acting when I was 14, my first acting class, because it was my first sense of a real community where I fit in, I fit in. And of course, as we've talked about here, theater is a form of healing and it's shamanic. And the people who thrive in it are parks. And there is this total overlap. So interesting. Yeah, we both felt isolated. And I've certainly heard a lot of stories over the years of people with very big families and. All right. That the child who is often the empath, also the one who's the disruptor in any family system, no matter how that looks, but challenges authority, challenges the way things are, is moving, as you would say in Constellation work, the family story further. We're often lonely, right, because we're marginalized. So then there's a longing. There was such sexual longing for me as an adult to make community. And I did you know, I made community in the acting world in New York. I made community with friends from that time who are still my dear friends coming to Santa Fe. I had a longing to create family of my own make community. What about I mean, what about you in all of that? And like, what is your relationship to community now? And as we were. Could be called to go deeper locally in our communities while expanding out into the world globaly. How do you think part of the restoring peace comes in, in your own life and in what you're examining right now and about that loneliness piece, too, or that isolation? How do we come back inside?    [00:10:30] I think it takes me to what I talk about so much that I feel my work is, which is working with the split. And I've often thought about that in a way I was born in. My parents divorced when I was five or six. You know, my mom, you know, was very liberal. My father's very conservative. And so I I grew up going between two households that couldn't have been more different in a way. And so I do think that that's really informed how I. It's interesting, as I hear you say that I actually think the way you're building community is more intimate than mine. I like the way you build community is is really up close and personal in the way that you support people in sharing their stories. And it's very relational. And while I talk a lot about being relational, I think mine ends up being a little more global inside myself. Like I track the splits. I want to constantly be finding commonality. I talk a lot about holding the tension of opposites and how do we kind of move toward center, which is a little more sort of theoretical in a way that also it's I do apply it to my life.    [00:11:47] But I guess as as I'm reflecting on that, there's still a little bit of some loneliness in that as I'm hearing myself say it and.    [00:11:57] Yeah, I mean, in the last podcast we talked about nursing and medicine, I often think about that with Split the American people and how things can be that everything can become politicized. And then there's a split. And I get really frustrated with that, which has to do with my own complexes and my own material in terms of how I grew up, you know, feeling like I was from a family who was counterculture. And I had this tremendous radar about wanting to sort of find a way to fit in or be sort of normal and how that's translated into how I was even chosen partners and what kinds of friends I had. And it's really it's just interesting to kind of reflect on all of that, because really I think those early experiences really do speak to how we form community.    [00:12:48] And I think in a way I do minelife life now at the age of fifty four has sort of prepared me for what's going on in the world in a way, because I know how to work with splits.    [00:13:05] I think about just the crisis that we're in right now and how a community now how are we community in isolation. So if you and I both had inner isolation as children, how did we build community? And now here we are doing that again for very different reasons.    [00:13:21] We're building community in isolation, really, and finding the ways that we lean into our humanity and mirror each other or sometimes like to. It's so valuable to me to look at my intimate relationships and especially with you and ways we do it, because it makes it helps me track patterns. You're talking about tracking splits and I'm always internally tracking story patterns and like I'm always tracking story structure internally. Like, how is the story playing out? And it's interesting to me because because of your outsider status as a child, you wanted to find your way in and you had the giftedness to find your way into systems. I was marginalized as a child, I think, because I had ADHD. You know, I I was tested very high, but had learning disabilities and struggles in school and systems, I think, because, yeah, there was a kind of insider's point of view in terms of patriarchy. Right. We were the inside people and I saw the shadow on the inside. And so I wanted to bust out of every system. And that's the shaft of my life. And now at fifty five, the integration is finding systems that work, creating new structures that work. And we talk a lot about the divine feminine and one of my own sort of a hause of my own business life. And moving my work out into the world at all is how it's the sacred masculine to me, the sacred masculine structure that is a relationship to divine feminine, the sacred masculine as opposed to the toxic masculine holds the feminine. And then there's this integration, right. So the coming together, you call it healing the split.    [00:15:11] I often call it integration or of course, in unity in terms of your in your depth space union thing, you know, the inter-marriage.    [00:15:20] So how do we after are the trauma and and and the split and experiencing either a busting out of this or need to be in it because both are survival strategies.    [00:15:36] Right. On some level. How? Well, why don't you talk a little bit, if you will, about your movement, either professionally or personally to heal that split.    [00:15:47] And where are you standing around that in terms of building a new kind of community that the world has never perhaps seen or is seeing now or living into? And then I mean, I'm happy to share about how I've been building community globaly also, because I think it's interesting the different ways around the insider outsider stuff. Right. And some of us I think more and more of us are called to walk back and forth on that bridge between the perceived insider and the perceived outsider. Right.    [00:16:17] That there's a healing when the two are bridged and people are less polarized.    [00:16:25] Well, I think that yeah, it sounds funny when you say insider outsider, because where I heard that was literally insider and that's where I wanted to go was inside that that. I do think that that's what that's for me, partly how I'm working with the split as healing my internal splits. And and and so what that looks like, it's almost holding my own feet to the fire. And so staying with relationships that can be challenging, staying with relation and letting them. Form so relationships don't have to stay the same. They don't have to. The roles can even change, but not allowing myself to to throw people away. And I think that that's become a value for me. It's almost become like a spiritual practice. And it was not easy. And I think the tricky part for me is walking that really narrow edge because I can so easily fall into codependence. So like, when is that codependents and when is it me being really skilled at working with my own inter-marriage? So that on the one hand, I know that there is no other whether there's no such thing as another, there's no such thing as a throwaway. And we also live in a in a world of duality. And so we do see what's in opposition to us and how can we hold that and lean into it and work with the tension of opposites, because that really is how we work on the inter-marriage within ourselves. And and that helps us to pull back our projections. It helps us not to be in denial. It helps us to go through our own internal transformative processes in terms of how that works for me and community. I think it takes me back to this paradoxical place that sometimes that can be lonely.    [00:18:21] And I wonder how much loneliness and and in a way suffering provide a little bit of grist for the mill.    [00:18:33] For us, it's like the pebble in the shoe, it's the thing that keeps us awake. It's the thing. It may be in a way, it's a little bit of the loneliness that that that causes some kind of an outward movement that keeps us alive and that in some way. I mean, I think there is so much paradox in that. And and it feels like what I'm saying feels sort of depressing. But I think I'm not wanting for some reason in this particular conversation because I know we need each other so much. We are interdependent beings. It is so critical that we know that we're interconnected and that we don't do this alone.    [00:19:12] And you and I have talked about that in your phrase, which I love. Is that the time of the lone wolf is over. And you're absolutely right. Like we talk about the message that I got years ago about the two by two and that you and I are trying to consciously do this. This shared leadership model together about how do we walk this out two by two. Because if we do that, it will be greater so much greater than if we do it alone. And that means having creative dissonance and facing things that might stretch us in ways that are really uncomfortable and inhabit comfortable conversations for the sake.    [00:19:44] So nature. You know, I think that. Yeah. And that it's Mehdi's rabbit and that we can be. So why have we been conditioned to be so afraid of dissonance? Because of course you put two people together. We have very different life experiences, different triggers, even if we have a lot of shared value, shared beliefs and deeply shared things. Any authentic relationship. Right. Is going to have some dissidents. We've been conditioned to be so afraid of that, of meeting it honestly, without just blowing it up or cutting and running. Right.    [00:20:21] And that's what we're conditioned to to to do, because it's that goes back to the podcast on grief that we did. When Stephen we talked about Stephen Vine's quote about the more we move away from grief, the more pain we feel. It's the same thing here. I think with community we are in a time of literal isolation with the pandemic. And we are also at a time where people are literally dying from isolation and loneliness. I mean, as a nurse, I can tell you it's totally up in our conversations, you know, about public health. It's a public health concern. And I think what I guess I want to say to that, like kind of wrapping up the conversation about how we restore a community is somewhere there's got to be the integration of the inter-marriage on the slide before we can really have the community on the outside. And I think we have been taken so far away from doing the work within going within to ourselves that it makes it really hard to have community on the outside.    [00:21:24] It really does. And I'm thinking about our community here in Santa Fe. And it's an amazing place. But there's a shadow here and community and a lot of people come to me and speak about the shadow. I feel like I've been embroiled in certain situations in the shadow. But here's the thing. We're much more comfortable with our community, right? So we have music on the plaza and people go and participate. We have an amazing farmer's market. But where I find the dissonances, those same people who can be engaged in these beautiful community building activities is not that there's anything wrong with that. They're great. It's just it only hits on one level and people then walk home and are by themselves. And there's like the emotional intimacy still hasn't happened. You might say hi to 30 people there. And that's wonderful.    [00:22:17] That's a community that has your back. And it's very much going back to the old ways. But what you're talking about here is the emotional community or what I'll say is and I know it's why people love solo shows and memoirs and all the story work I've done over the years. People are come to it because they're dying for intimacy. It's like, please just tell me the truth. Mirror me back to me. And then after the show, they just want to stand there and tell all their own stories. Right. So to me, restoring community is built on the great things that are happening. Community models, town squares, getting green, building things that we talk about a lot when we're talking about restrike community.    [00:22:54] But then how do we take it further? How do we move that? Part of the inquiry is to a place where everybody's story belongs. Everybody gets to be heard.    [00:23:03] You know, people have places to come and be with the deeper issues and nobody's exiled.    [00:23:12] You know, it's really interesting because I I've experienced your work enough. You know, a lot. Enough to know that those are some of the most rich community bonding experiences that I've experienced. And I actually have put us both up on a pedestal. I also just want to say that, like in the Constellation work, I feel some. Very similar where something is transcended. And it's no longer those those community constellation workshops you bypass the superficial kind of community get into a much, much deeper you know, as I talk about the river beneath the river, the slow river.    [00:23:51] And when you tap into that together, whether it's through your story work or through family, constellation work and doing ancestral and lineage healing, it's a deeper experience of community.    [00:24:02] And I think that's what we're missing, just as we're missing out on the deeper experience of being in community really with ourselves on the inside, being in community with intimacy, whether it's about integrate, work with healing or being there, and both require that we let go of all ego would be very transparent about who we are and where we come from in our shadow issues, as well as celebrating each other and our joy. But what we're I think we're tapping into something really essential for based on our own experience.    [00:24:33] Restoring the culture means building out the wonderful community pieces there, but taking it deeper, more circles, more, more coming together around the place where we're just longing to be seen.    [00:24:49] And I would add and I think that's absolutely right and I would add to that, that we honor the other, because if we're gonna really talk about diversity, diversity can can be like lip service. And if you're really wanting diversity, it means you honored people on the other side of the aisle that you don't see the other as the other guy. I know that they're part of they have just as much right to belong in their communities. We all do. And it's walking it's walking that out because that requires the relationship.    [00:25:20] It really does. And one of the best models, I must say, I have seen for that are the Twelve Steps and I've been part of 12-Step programs. It honors diversity. Everyone has the right to belong and they get to share. You don't have to agree. And that's actually written in district steps and traditions. There's a really safe container there where you can get wildly diverse people and nobody has to feel that they're giving up their own sovereignty or soul or that by accepting doesn't necessarily mean agreeing, but it's an acceptance.    [00:25:54] Right.    [00:25:54] Well, and I think that that takes away the judgment. And judgment is one of the things that undermines safety, the safety of intimacy in in two people. The judgment undermines the safety of self-criticism, undermines the intimacy we have with ourselves. And then judgment projected outside of ourselves in the community creates a lack of of a safe and community container. And then people aren't coming together and connecting. So I think that's right. I mean, I'd love to sort of say that as our end note for restoring community is it's you know, without judgment, we have a chance.    [00:26:32] Beautiful, Camille, perfect place to end.   

Congratulations Michael Sturba and Rachel Duguay on the success of your new product, MicroPuzzles! Successful inventor Stephen Key interviews these entrepreneurs about how they launched their unique puzzle concept onto the market. https://micropuzzles.com/ MicroPuzzles are 150-piece mini puzzles that come packed in test tubes. Compact and vibrant, they can be completed in a single sitting. Meaning they're challenging, but not overwhelming. They have about 20 designs on their website, and you can also order a personalized puzzle. Michael and Rachel are manufacturing MicroPuzzles out of their one-bedroom apartment in Anaheim, California — which is seriously impressive, because their product looks as professional as you would find anywhere. After they were featured on the KTLA morning news last week, their sales have increased by eight times! When Stephen saw how small the puzzles were, he immediately thought they would be perfect for travel and point of sale. Right now, they are donating a portion of each online sale to the CDC Foundation. “For the times we're in, MicroPuzzles are a great fit. Our philosophy has been to sell first and sell fast. Speed and momentum are humungous.” — Michael In this video, Michael and Rachel describe how they came up with the idea for MicroPuzzles and the strategies they have used to get media attention, as well as a licensing deal from Stephen's longtime mentor Steve Askin. Michael and Rachel have never been inventRight students. They are longtime fans of our free and low-cost educational resources, including videos, articles, webinars, and books. Bringing an invention to market? Let inventRight, the world's leading experts on product licensing, show you how. Cofounded by Stephen Key and Andrew Krauss in 1999, inventRight has since helped people from more than 60 countries license their ideas for products. Visit http://www.inventright.com for more information and to become their student. Call #1-800-701-7993 to set up an appointment with Andrew or another member of the inventRight team to discuss how we can help you license your ideas. New to licensing? Read inventRight cofounder Stephen Key's bestselling book “One Simple Idea: Turn Your Dreams Into a Licensing Goldmine While Letting Others Do the Work.” Find it here: http://amzn.to/1LGotjB. Want to learn how to license your product ideas without a patent? Stephen's book “Sell Your Ideas With or Without a Patent” explains exactly how. Find it here: http://amzn.to/1T1dOU2. Determined to become a professional inventor? Read Stephen's new book "Become a Professional Inventor: The Insider's Guide to Companies Looking For Ideas": https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1653786256/ inventRight, LLC. is not a law firm and does not provide legal, patent, trademark, or copyright advice. Please exercise caution when evaluating any information, including but not limited to business opportunities; links to news stories; links to services, products, or other websites. No endorsements are issued by inventRight, LLC., expressed or implied. Depiction of any trademarks/logos does not represent endorsement of inventRight, LLC, its services, or products by the trademark owner. All trademarks are registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Stephen was a very powerful Spirit filled deacon in the early church, who evangelized with power and truth, causing everyone who heard him to choose for or against God. When Stephen was called before the same religious leaders who condemned Jesus to death, they condemned Stephen as well. This is the end of the the special messianic relationship between God and the Jewish people.

Stephen was a very powerful Spirit filled deacon in the early church, who evangelized with power and truth, causing everyone who heard him to choose for or against God. When Stephen was called before the same religious leaders who condemned Jesus to death, they condemned Stephen as well. This is the end of the the special messianic relationship between God and the Jewish people.

Today's Bible Readings: Leviticus 22; Psalms 28-29; Eccl. 5; 2 Timothy 1The opening verses of Psalm 29 suggest that a great part of what it means to “worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness” is to ascribe to him the praise that is his due: ascribe to him glory and strength, “the glory due his name”(29:1-2).In this light, the central section of the psalm (29:3-9) is remarkable, for it focuses on just one element in God’s activity, viz. the voice of the Lord. “The voice of the LORD is over the waters” — possibly an allusion both to the original creation, when God simply “spoke” and the universe came into being and took form, and to the spectacular deliverance when God parted the Red Sea, but also to every storm-swept current; “the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.” The voice of the Lord is both powerful and majestic. It “breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon,” proverbial for their size and strength — an allusion to the unleashed storms that God’s voice calls forth. Indeed, this is nothing to him, for nations and mountains alike perform his bidding, and all of them hear the thunder of his voice in the storm that traverses from Lebanon in the north to Kadesh in the south.The secularist looks at a storm and thinks exclusively of the physical properties that have brought it about. The believer understands that those properties have been built into the material world by its Creator, and that God himself speaks in thunder and lightning. The only proper response is to gather in his temple, and in a spirit of mingled awe and humility cry, “Glory!” (29:9).Small wonder that the psalm ends (29:10-11) by focusing on the universal reign of God: “the LORD is enthroned as King forever,” whether at the time of the deluge (the Hebrew word for “flood” in this passage is found only here and in Gen. 6-11) — the very deluge that most powerfully demonstrated God’s power to deploy the forces of “nature” as he sees fit — or in the perpetual blessings and strength God confers on his people.Isaiah foresees the day when the “Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples,” when the nations will rally to him and his place of rest will be, literally, “the glory” (Isa. 11:10). When Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was about to be sent into eternity by the furious mob, his eyes were opened, and he looked up to heaven and saw “the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55).His is the final voice of God; he is the Word of God. “Ascribe to the LORD glory and strength” (29:1). Let all cry, “Glory!”This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

When Stephen opened the Utter Ibiza Residency June 2019

Dear Manna Family, How fast life can change! Most of the time, today looks a lot like yesterday, and so we assume that tomorrow will look a lot like today. Most of the time that’s true, but not always. When 911 occurred and the USA was attacked, our world changed in an instant. We no longer felt as safe as we did the day before, even in our own country. The tragedy of terrorism was no longer ‘over there.’ Now it was ‘right here, right now.’ Earlier this year, the corona virus seemed to be someone else’s problem, far far away. Now this infectious, invisible enemy is spreading exponentially all around the world and it has changed our world, almost overnight. In times like these, we need to remember that God really is in control of everything. When the disciples were in the boat with Jesus on the Sea of Galilee, a storm suddenly sprang up and threatened their lives…………until Jesus calmed the storm. ( Matthew 8: 23-27) When the Shunamite woman’s only son suddenly died, she grieved…….until God used Elisha to raise her son from the dead. (2 Kings 4) Peter, the leader of Jesus’ twelve disciples, trusted in his own strength and denied even knowing Jesus……….until the Holy Spirit filled him with divine power, and then thousands came to faith in Christ. (John 18 and Acts 2) When Stephen preached a powerful sermon to the Jewish religious leaders, they were convicted of their sin, but instead of repenting, they stoned him to death……….and he saw Jesus face to face in heaven. (Acts 7) Not all change ends in ‘happily ever after,’ as we define ‘happily ever after.’ Change is seldom peaceful and it is often frightening. We sing the old song, “This is My Fathers World.” That’s very true, but as The Owner of Everything, God can and will do whatever He chooses with what belongs to Him, and that includes us. It’s comforting to know that our Heavenly Father loves us, and arranges everything for our good and His glory…………even sudden changes from a small virus! Remember, God designed us to ‘do life together!” Love and Prayers, Brad

'Tell Me The Old, Old Story' Reader: Louise Macmillan Date: 1st March 2020 Time: ------------------- Some people love history, others think it is' bunk'! Stephen, like many of his Jewish people did love history. The Jews would tell the old, old story of what God had done for them in past years over and over again. But if we read Acts 6 and 7 we see that telling God's story got Stephen into great trouble and he was eventually put to death. Why? There were many Jews who were jealous of Stephen and of the godly life and powerful works he was able to do in the name of Jesus. When Stephen was telling the Jewish leaders about parts of their own history he said these leaders were just like the hardhearted leaders of past times who killed godly prophets — these leaders in front of Stephen had indeed killed the Righteous One, Jesus. You can imagine how full of anger and hatred Stephen's audience became. Stephen said they were "stiff-necked people, ... always resisting the Holy Spirit" (Acts 7:51). You don't win friends that way! So they took Stephen out and stoned him to death. Was Stephen a failure then? Did he tell the old, old story in vain? No! You can read in Acts 7:55-59 how Jesus himself welcomed him home to heaven when he died. And from verse 58 we see that Stephen's story and Jesus's place in it obviously troubled one young man who later became one of Christ's great ambassadors. He was the Apostle Paul. So thank Go for Stephen's godly history stories!

The global nonalcoholic beverage market is expected to reach a record value of $1,650.28 billion by 2024, according to a recent report from Zion Market Research, while the consumption of alcohol around the world fell 1.6% in 2018, according to IWSR Drinks Market Analysis. In today’s episode I am joined by Steven Lawrence who is the founder of Brunswick Aces. Brunswick aces is a beverage brand which makes amazing alcoholic and non-alcoholic gin. When Stephen set up Brunswick aces with a few very next door neighbours there was only around 4 non-alcoholic spirit companies around, fast forward a couple of years and there now is over 40, this just shows what a growing market the non-alcoholic beverage space has become and it will only grow bigger. Such a great story by Stephen and I hope you check out his products at your next event.

A kinsman of the Apostle Paul, the Holy Stephen was one of the seven deacons (with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas) first appointed by the Church to minister to the people; and it pleased God to receive him as the Church's first Martyr for Christ. Read the long, beautiful and edifying account of his witness in the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 6-8. When Stephen, "full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people," (Acts 6:8), some members of a synagogue in Jerusalem came to dispute with him and, enraged by his proclamation of Christ, stoned him to death. In his death St Stephen revealed Christ's erasure of the boundary between heaven and earth, and the new communion between man and God: his face shone with the light of the Transfiguration, and he was granted a vision of Christ enthroned at the Father's right hand. His dying words were "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge" (Acts 7:60).   According to holy tradition, the martyrdom of St Stephen occurred exactly a year after the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. His body was taken and secretly buried by Gamaliel, a member of the Sanhendrin and secretly a Christian.   Saint Stephen's relics were discovered by the priest Lucian in 415 following a vision. They were translated to the church built for them in Jerusalem by the Empress Eudocia, and later taken to Constantinople.   The Saint's missionary speech before his death (like that of the deacon St Philip to the Ethiopian eunuch) reminds us that those appointed to serve the Church materially are not barred, or even excused, from proclaiming the glorious Gospel of Christ.

When Stephen is brought before the Jewish Council, he defends himself against their slanderous accusations and charges them with resisting the Holy Spirit. How did the Jews resist the Holy Spirit and how do we do this today?

Do you want to learn how Stephen has grown by an EXTRA 35,000 POUNDS A MONTH since working with us? Or how about how much growth you can ACTUALLY accomplish as a member of our Tribe? On this Episode of the Practice Acceleration Podcast, we’re hosting an EXCLUSIVE interview with one of our clients from the UK, Stephen. When Stephen started with Practice Acceleration 7 months ago, he was a hardworking, incredibly talented Osteopath, running a 7 figure business. BUT… he was juggling too many balls, and despite him trying everything he could, he couldn’t take his business to the next level. NOW, Stephen is still hardworking and incredibly talented, BUT… - He has grown by an extra 35,000 POUNDS PER MONTH!! - His team are aligned, enjoying work, and are helping more patients than ever before! - AND he’s taking his family on regular holidays around the world (including travelling down under for our exclusive members only event) Stephen thought he was focused and successful… that was until he discovered our frameworks and strategies. Stephen has now entered what me and my clients call “Boss Mode”. Listen now to hear how Stephen made the transition from a “practitioner” to the CEO of his business AND his honest opinion on what it is like to work with Tristan Bond and his team… Listen to this episode now!

When Stephen was to be stoned to death, he saw the heavens open up. This story is found in Acts 7:55. among many other parallels of scriptures seeing Jesus and the heavens revealing the throne room. Tammy continues this Throne Room series to teach the perfect unity of God. Hear more to focus on eternity and what is eternal.

When Stephen is brought before the religious leaders and falsely accused of blasphemy, he gives a message they could not ignore. He began with Abraham and explained as he went how Israel had a history of rejecting those whom God sent as His servants. He stresses the rejection of Moses, the abuse of the prophets, […] The post The Holy Spirit: Do Not Resist Him appeared first on Revive Outreach Church.

When Stephen is falsely accused of blasphemy he defends himself before the council in Jerusalem. The record of his testimony provides compelling evidence of the accuracy of the Book of Acts.

Reboot, so please enjoy:   Sex Spoken Here: Sex Love Stories 1 Intro and My Story     Welcome to my virtual therapy room!  I am Dr Lori Beth Bisbey and this is Sex Spoken Here. Remember that this podcast deals with adult themes so if you don’t have privacy you might wish to put on your headphones.    Today I am starting a series that is different from the ones I usually do.  Since I started this podcast, I have covered different topics to do with sex, sexuality, gender and relationships over two or three weeks, looking at each topic in moderate depth.   In this new series, I am interviewing people from all walks of life about their journeys to sexual authenticity and integration.  Different people are in different places on their journeys.  Some are close to the beginning, others in the middle and still others have reached a place of authenticity and integration and their journeys are focused on more pleasure and more learning.    For each story, I’ll give a short summary and I will provide some advice or tips for further learning or help if you need it with any of the issues talked about during the story.     It is my hope that you will see yourself somewhere in these stories and you will gain support and inspiration from them.  Some of them are really hard in places and they also contain great joy.  Your sexual journey is as unique as your lip print (which is as unique as a fingerprint – as is your nose print, ear print and your eyes).   My journey is a long one, so grab a cup of tea, coffee or your favourite tipple, any nibbles you choose and get comfortable.  When you listen to these stories, try to listen without judgement.  Reflect on your own story and each unique piece that makes you authentically you.   Many people believe that all good stories begin ‘Once upon a time’ but that beginning is for a fairy tale and my story starts in the real world.   As a pre-teen, my fantasies were about having a master and living in a bottle like the show I Dream of Jeannie.  I created a decorated a bottle to live in.  I didn’t know why I wanted this, I just did.         By the time I reached my teens, the fantasy was more detailed.  There were Masters and Mistresses, and other slave women (for that is how I saw the genie).   I was sexually precocious for a number of reasons that I will leave for another day.  At 13, I was desperate to lose my virginity but I was ashamed of my desire.  I got it in my head that doing so at 13 would be too young and therefore make me a slut so I decided to wait until after my 14th birthday.  I had a boyfriend at the time and I made him wait until 10 days after my 14th birthday.   Before my birthday, I discovered the joys of blow jobs.  I loved the feelings that giving a blow job gave me.  My boyfriend counted himself lucky.   My boyfriend’s parents were divorced.  He was 16 and lived with his mom.  She didn’t mind him bringing me to his bedroom.  As a result, I lost my virginity in a comfortable room, in a clean comfortable bed, with Pink Floyd’s Darkside of the Moon album playing on the stereo.  We used condoms and he was careful to work on arousing me before the first penetration.  There was nothing at all traumatic about the experience.  It hurt a little but within a few minutes it was feeling good.   It was a great entry to the world of fucking and I have been grateful for this ever since.  When I finally did experience traumatic sex, I knew that sex could be seriously good which meant I knew it could be again.   Shortly after this, I had my first proper girlfriend.  I had fooled around with some of my female friends earlier – kissing here and there, an occasional fondle.  S was my first real girlfriend.  With her, I discovered the joys of eating pussy.  At that time, I preferred to be the one giving not receiving.      My desires to be forced, to be a slave, to be told what to do, just increased as time went on.  At 14, I got involved with Perry who was 18 while I was at summer camp.  He worked in the kitchen and I was a camper.  He was so sexy and wrote poetry.  He would read to me.  It wasn’t long before my parents broke us up.  The age difference was the main reason.  I had not even entered high school and he had already graduated and was headed to university.  Perry introduced me to proper erotica.   As I was and still am a voracious reader, I was in heaven.  I was relieved to see that there were other people like me, who had cravings like mine.  None of my friends who I tried to confide in understood my cravings at all.  I would end up feeling shamed when I spoke about my desires so I quickly learned not to speak of them.  I also loved sex and had no desire for a monogamous relationship.  This had me labelled as a slut very quickly.    The girls I got involved with didn’t want me to be with boys.  The boys I got involved with wanted me to bring the girls I liked home so they could watch but weren’t happy if I saw them separately.  High school was filled with experimentation and promiscuity.  I did not feel good about myself, however.  I had accepted what others were saying – that there was something wrong with wanting the things I wanted and something wrong with wanting sex with more than one person and something wrong with wanting boys and girls.    I read the Story of O and Return to the Chateau.  At 15 while at summer school, I saw the movie.  I also saw the movie Swept Away with Giancarlo Giannini.  I read 9 ½ weeks.  But I still hadn’t yet had a relationship that included much more than pushing my head down when I was giving head.   I went off to university at 17 in the autumn of 1980.  I was registering for English classes when I saw a lithe man with long hair, a goatee who was smoking a pipe.   I fell for him before we even spoke.  His presence struck me and when he introduced himself, I was stammering.  J and I began a relationship shortly after.  Our sex had more than a little power exchange.  There was some breath play and lots of intensity.  It was electrifying.  This was what I had been fantasising about since I was 9.   Our relationship was cut short by his live in girlfriend just before the end of my freshman year.  By this point, I was a bit less ashamed of my desires.  Some of them had begun to feel just a part of me.  I didn’t feel bad about my love for men and women.  I no longer beat myself up because I often loved more than one person at the same time.  I still felt pressure to fit in to my parent’s model of relationships but I was away at university so I felt a degree of freedom to experiment.    I started sophomore year with a re-newed relationship with J with D’s agreement.  This was my first proper foray into an ethical non-monogamous relationship.  It fit me beautifully.  I was thrilled to be able to be honest and I certainly didn’t want one partner.   The first semester was filled with exploration and lots of seriously hot sex.  I still had a small amount of shame about my desire to engage in rough sex and to be dominated, but I was feeling better and better about myself.   At the end of May, D introduced me to Alton telling me ‘I think you two will really hit it off.’.  Alton was 26 years old and I was just 19.  He was tall, slender with burnt sienna skin, a long-ish brown fro with a small white stripe – reminded me of a lightning bolt.  His eyes were captivating and his voice hit me right in the pussy – deep, smooth, liquid with plenty of bass.    The attraction was immediate.  We went out for a bite after work.  Alton drew all sorts of information out of me during that first talk.  I was unsophisticated and didn’t see how he was leading me.    By the time the evening came to an end, I was lost.  He took me home, kissed me goodnight and arranged to see me the next day.   Alton told me that women he dated had to agree to obey him or he didn’t get involved.  He promised we would go slowly and if there was anything I truly did not want to do, he wouldn’t press me.   He was one of my fantasies come to life.  It didn’t take me long to agree.    The next night, Alton came over and we had sex for hours.  It was hot, intense sex.  He was very large so it took me being extremely aroused to manage his size.   When I gagged on him, he pulled back, helped me to relax and try again.  It got easier to manage his size even when he was controlling the action. Orgasm had mostly alluded me during fucking and or having any kind of penetrative sex and my male lovers to that point didn’t eat pussy.  Orgasm with Alton felt easy.  His hands pulling my head back, his teeth on my neck and breasts while he pounded into me just seemed to work.   This was 1982 and I used a diaphragm for birth control so I didn’t use condoms.  I was careful to make sure my diaphragm was inserted properly.  I didn’t want to get pregnant.  I didn’t worry much about disease as I believed all the myths of the time about catching diseases and most of the things I might catch were relatively easily curable.  I was like most of my peers.  We felt invincible.   After a few days, Alton stopped leaving my place in the morning.  He didn’t move stuff in but he stayed.  10 days after we first went out, we headed out for a drink and his attitude was more serious.  There was an edge I hadn’t seen before.  I didn’t know that he had a cocaine addiction.  In fact, he used intravenously. I didn’t know he was withdrawing and that was making him really ratty.  I didn’t have access to money to give him.  My bills were paid by my parents.  My extra money came from the same job that Alton had – telesales.  I was a supervisor in the office, checking the sales made by the others.   We got to the bar and Alton began to interrogate me.  He asked questions about my other lovers.  He demanded details about what I had done, how I felt.  He told me he didn’t believe that I was committed to him.  He told me he thought I was a fake, not really submissive, not really willing to obey.  I felt confused, hurt and also scared that he would leave.  I was having the best sexual relationship of my life and I had strong feelings for him.  I didn’t want to lose him.  By the time we left, I was feeling off balance.  We were half way down Brookline Ave when he pushed me into a doorway and down to my knees.  He demanded I suck him off.  I was overwhelmed, frightened and a little excited.  My hesitation was met with a growl of ‘Obey!’.  I did and when he finished, he dragged me to my feet and we headed back to my flat.    From that evening, things changed.  Alton was rough and mean in his handling of me so at the end of the day, I said no.  I told him I wanted him to leave.  He laughed at me.  He came for me with a closed fist and began to beat me.  I was shocked, then I struggled but it did no good.  He was far stronger than I.  I screamed but no one came.  Eventually, I just took the beating.  When he finished, I couldn’t put my legs together as my thighs were too bruised.    For 5 days, Alton kept me captive.  He beat me repeatedly.  He raped me repeatedly.  He humiliated me.  Twice he choked me until there was no breath in me and I died.  When I came back it was to him pounding on my chest and giving me mouth to mouth.  He fed me nothing.  He poured alcohol down my throat.   Friends came to see me but I was too afraid to say what was going on directly.  I tried using code.  I was convinced he was going to kill me.   On the 6th morning, Alton got up, showered and dressed and told me he was going out and I wasn’t to talk to anyone or to go out.  An hour after he left, J came by and found me shaking and weak.   My face was covered in little red dots (called petechial hemmorhages) because he burst all my capilliaries strangling me.  The bruising on my vulva and my inner thighs was so severe that my skin was black.    I told J that I needed to get away, that I was in danger.  I packed a gym bag with socks, a t-shirt, sweats and butcher knife, a set of hand cuffs and my jewelry and my journal.  I wouldn’t tell J where I was going.  I was afraid Alton would find out.  I told him I would let him know when I was safe. I went into Cambridge and was lucky that a good Samaritan found me wandering aimlessly and took me to a café and bought me a meal.  I had no money with me.   He helped me contact D and she met me at the hospital.  The rape exam is a story for another time.   As is the story of the police, preliminary hearing and the eventual plea bargain because the DA was afraid to try to prosecute rape when I had slept with Alton consensually before.    I developed PTSD after this event.  Probably no surprise.  I entered therapy quickly with a lovely older man who was a Jungian analyst.  I remember very little of the contents of the therapy except that I remember a warm non-judgemental presence who helped me to be able to breathe and continue my studies but who was unable to help me get rid of the nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts and the intense shame that despite all that Alton did to me, I still wanted rough sex and a dominant partner and there were some things that he did to me that I would fantasise about.    I found myself attracted to older men who had an edge.  These were Vietnam veterans who had PTSD. It was a strange coincidence.  I was now 20 years old and there wasn’t anywhere where I came into contact with veterans.  But I was involved with three in a row. All of them were 16 years or more older than I.   All of them were dominant but only with the last one did I enter any kind of stated power exchange relationship.  My liasions with women during this time were fleeting.   And all of my sexual relationships were tinged with shame.   I graduated from university and re-located to North Carolina where I met S.  This was my next power exchange relationship and I fell into it without really knowing what was happening.  I spent the next year exploring the dynamics of a dominant submissive relationship.  There was just one problem.  I couldn’t surrender.  I wanted to so badly but I couldn’t let go.  Orgasm eluded me as it had mostly since Alton because orgasm meant losing control.  I was fine if I was masturbating because I was safe.  With a partner, orgasm was nigh on impossible.  In the autumn, I left North Carolina for graduate school in clinical psychology in California.   Throughout graduate school, I took reckless sexual risks.  I hooked up with strangers to try out various kinks and BDSM.  Looking back, I’m lucky that I was not injured or killed.  I was in therapy during this time, still trying to get my PTSD symptoms to go away and deal with the resultant depression.  They did not.  Hypervigilance had me walking round the house at night, checking all the windows and doors repeatedly.  I lived with G for a year and he taught me that orgasm was much more likely if someone was eating my pussy.    I had a couple of girl friends who added evidence to this lesson.  I hooked up with J, G and T from university and indulged in group sex.  I spent time on Compuserve and on bulletin boards talking with people who were Masters, slaves, tops, bottoms and into all sorts of kinks.  I went to private parties and underground clubs.  I met K and had a whirlwind romance with elements of all of my desires and it ended badly.  I got involved with a woman who insisted that I was truly a lesbian and that the reason I was sexually unsatisfied was that I hadn’t found the right woman.   She wasn’t the right one.  (This has happened a lot – both men and women have felt the need to explain to me that if I found the right insert gender here I would be het or gay or monogamous or I wouldn’t want kink)   Then I met my first husband at a conference on PTSD and a treatment method called Traumatic Incident Reduction.  His accent did me in.  He was tall with dark hair, moustache and pale skin.  Extremely good looking.  I was on the rebound.    The initial sex was good though very vanilla.  There was no orgasm for me but I enjoyed the sex.     I signed up to experience TIR and spent a week working intensively with a facilitator.  It was nothing short of miraculous.  At the end of that week, my symptoms of PTSD were gone and most of them were never to return. (I still have some hypervigilance in certain situations and get tactile defensive).  I had my energy back.  I was no longer depressed.  I could sleep.  No more flashbacks.  3 months later I agreed to marry Stephen and 3 months after that I was living in the UK.   Stephen was alcoholic.  I hadn’t really understood that until he went into withdrawal before our first wedding date and ended up in hospital with a gastric bleed.  He agreed to stop drinking and did for three years.  Those three years were a nightmare.  Alcoholics who stop drinking are crazy for the first year or two of recovery depending up on the severity and length of the addiction and whether they are working a program.  He was not.  Our sex life was sporadic and not satisfactory for either of us.  I remember clearly when I complained that he didn’t wait for me to even get close to coming, he said that he didn’t care if I came as long as he got his.  When Stephen started drinking again, it got worse.   I had sex 12 times in 8 years.  I finally left.   I met up with N, 4 months later.  He gave me permission to play again.  After 8 years of no sex and at 35 years old, I was back out in the single world.  I did some personal spiritual work and personal development work that left me feeling comfortable with my desire to submit, surrender, be dominated and even comfortable with my more masochistic desires, feeling comfortable with my desire for non-monogamy and happy in my bisexuality.    I told N that I was finally ready to go back and explore BDSM and the rest of my kink.  We enjoyed swinging together and have stayed family to this day.    6 months later, I met my second husband, F.   In hindsight, my hormones were driving my choice of F.  He is 12 years younger than I and was happy to be a stay at home dad.  He was relatively inexperienced sexually and it was quickly apparent that we weren’t sexually compatible.    But my hormones drove me forward.  I wanted a baby and time was running out.  This was not conscious!  Before we married, we clearly made a contract about ethical non-monogamy.  We decided that we needed to talk with each other before seeing another person and that each of us had the right to say we didn’t want a relationship to begin or continue.  F wasn’t interested in any of the kink that captivated me but I wasn’t concerned because I could find other partners to meet those needs.    In theory, it should have worked well.  In practice, it was a disaster.    I had my incredible son and became very ill.  My sex life with F was non-existent.  I began to explore again following the terms of our ethical non-monogamy.  I caught F lying about an online hook up and making plans to bring her to our home when I was away on a business trip.  He apologised and said it wouldn’t happen again.    Two years later, he had a real life affair that lasted over 6 months.   He told me when the husband of the woman he had the affair with threatened to tell me.   We separated 6 months after I found out about the affair.   I spent time in 2004 and 2005 at sex positive and BDSM events in the UK. Time I spent running round with a pro Domme and a pro Master and their pro slave really got me to a place where I felt totally comfortable with all of my sexual self.  I finally felt that I was able to express myself authentically, congruently and with no apologies.     I was in a relationship when I found out about F’s affair.  I continued to pursue this relationship and 6 months later headed to a spirituality conference.  I met TJ, my current husband at this event.  We talked a lot and the electricity was apparent throughout but we didn’t act on it.   We maintained our friendship through FaceBook at first and then through Skype calls.  We had lunch when I visited my boyfriend three months after we first met and this led to our first kiss (He threw me over the bonnet of the car in the midst of a main road in Hollywood.  The kiss was so hot we stopped traffic).  Ours was a power exchange relationship from the start.  We spent time talking and negotiating and being clear about the form we wanted our relationship to take.  4 months later I accepted his collar.  This was in 2009.   In 2010, we attend our first public kink event together.  It was at this event that I met a butch woman with whom I would have a tumultuous two year D/s relationship.  He was there with his wife and the four of us got along really well.  It was 2011 before we managed to hook up and the relationship started with lots of promise.   In 2010, TJ and I started attending an annual BDSM event for POC which lead to attending an annual sex positive BDSM event for POC.  We have developed a circle of friends some of whom are playmates.  We have had the opportunity to play in public, play as a couple with another couple, indulge in some threesomes.    When my relationship the woman I met in 2010 ended in 2013, I entered another relationship with a woman I was close friends with to that point.  I have maintained a number of relationships with women since that time.   I adore my woman only time.      I finally live in congruence.  My sexuality is expressed authentically and I am free to continue to learn and explore.   I no longer have any shame about who I am or how I choose to live my life.  I love my husband, my beloved girlfriend, my friends with benefits.  I love attending sex positive events and trying new things even at the age of 54.   I am grateful to all of the people who have walked a part of this journey with me, including Alton, without whom I would not be the person I am today.  Alton forced me to look at myself from all angles, to learn to love every part of myself because I could not recover from what he did with me otherwise.      Today I talked about sexual trauma, dominance and submission, BDSM, kink, bisexuality and non-monogamy.  If any of these areas resonate for you and you need some help with any issues that arise, email me at drbisbey@the-intimacy-coach.com and I can provide you with resources for further learning or set up a discovery session to talk about what might help you further.   Thanks for joining me for Sex Spoken Here with Dr Lori Beth Bisbey. Write to me with suggestions for the show, questions you want answered at drbisbey@the-intimacy-coach.com, follow me on twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Check out my YouTube channel: Dr Lori Beth Bisbey. For a free 30-minute strategy session with me, go to www.the-intimacy-coach.com and click the button that says Schedule Now! Please leave a review on iTunes and stitcher. 

When Stephen was speaking to the Jews just before he was stoned to death, he accused them of being “a stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears who always resist the Holy Spirit!” Today in Revelation 9, we will be looking at a group of people just like these Jews in Acts 7 who make up the vast majority of the people left on this earth in the Great Tribulation. And no matter how bad things get on this earth […]

This week I look at an amazing report from Alaska that shows that given the choice, salmon may not be a grizzlies first choice for dinner. I also bring to a close, the story of the building of Canada's transcontinental railway..and with that said, let's get to it. Grizzlies Choose Berries over Salmon Every once in a while you come across a study that throws out everything that you thought you knew about a subject. As a biologist and naturalist, I often lament about how tough the bears in the Rockies have it over their counterparts on the north coast of British Columbia and Alaska. To most people, coastal bears live in the land of milk and honey. They have 5 kinds of Pacific salmon, and many kinds of edible berries. I often talk about the importance of understanding the seasonal food preferences of bears in order to stay safe in bear country. If you know what they're eating when they're eating it, it becomes safer to avoid unwanted encounters simply by avoiding the bear's food de jour. Stay clear of what is on today's menu. We often talk about the critical importance of meat in the diet of bears. Here in the Rockies, they don't have a great deal of meaty options. They'll take some 45% of newborn moose and elk calves, feed on winter killed bighorn sheep and mountain goats, and dig up some ground squirrel colonies. Since they can't have enough meat calories, they rely upon buffaloberries to build their fat layers for winter. If they can't find meat, then berries are their second choice…or so that's what we used to think. What if a bear found itself in a world with unlimited numbers of tasty salmon, but also a bumper crop of berries? What do YOU think they would choose? A recent study on Kodiak Island in Alaska tried to discover the answer to this question. They focused on a well-studied portion of the Karluk watershed on the island. Because bears have been studied here for many years, it seemed like a good place to start simply because there was some good historic data that might help them to determine the food preferences of the resident grizzlies. In this study, bears feed on a variety of berries including red elderberry, salmonberry, crowberry and blueberry. Of these four, red elderberry is by far the preferred choice for bears. If you're not familiar with elderberry bushes, look for a shrub that can be as tall as 3 or 4 metres with compound leaves and dense spikes of white flowers. Later, the flowers will be replaced by dense clumps of berries that grizzlies find very appealing. The denseness of the berry clusters is also what makes these berries popular with bears as they don't need to expend great deals of energy eating them. This experiment was prompted as a result of changes in the seasonal food patterns on Kodiak Island. Historically, while sockeye salmon run for 4 months, they are most vulnerable to bears when they enter smaller tributary streams in July and August. Year after year, decade after decade, the salmon always arrive at the same time of year. Because the bears are able to catch the salmon before they spawn, the fish contain up to 3 times more food energy than dying fish. In the past, elderberries ripened later in the season, usually mid-August as the salmon run was beginning to wane. For bears, this was ideal. As one food disappeared, another food was ready for feeding. Things have been changing rapidly in the north as a result of changing climates and increasingly warm spring temperatures. In warm years, the berries are beginning to ripen earlier and earlier, with ripe berries as early as mid-July on some years. For the first time the bears found themselves in a situation where there were two key foods that were available in the same area at the same time. What surprised University of California scientists though was that they did not make the obvious choice - salmon. Instead the majority of bears abandoned the streams and moved upland to feast on elderberries. I know what you're saying - "fake science". After all, no self-respecting carnivore would choose berries over salmon, but despite all logic indicating that they would stick with salmon, they didn't. Biologists used a number of methods to track the bears behaviour in years where the elderberries ripened at the same time as the sockeye runs. When they studied images from 8 years of aerial surveys of the rivers during the salmon run, in every case, years with early berry crops coincided with fewer bears fishing for salmon. This was backed up by looking at areas outside the Karluk River and when 31 years of aerial photographs were compared to ripening dates, the same results were shown. In particular, during the exceedingly warm summers of 2014 and 2015, studies of scat showed the same results. Of 151 scat samples identified, 125 were composed primarily of red elderberries. 2010 formed a good control years as there was a failure of the elderberry crop and, when they looked at the location of GPS collared bears, they remained at the river to feed on the available salmon. Their conclusions showed that if elderberries were available at the same time as sockeye salmon, the bears would largely ignore the salmon and turn into a furry frugivore. As you can imagine, this put the biologists into a tizzy. Why would grizzlies purposely choose foods with lower nutritional value and a lower percentage of protein. When they looked into the nutritional content of the foods, they discovered that the berries offered only around 50% as much food energy as salmon. This number can be reduced even further when you consider that with a seemingly endless number of salmon, the bears are able to select just the most nutritious parts like the skin, the brains and the eggs. This still seemed to confound common sense. They had to look deeper. What they discovered is that it's not just about calories. In order for the bears to maximize weight gain, they may need to look beyond simple calories. The choice may be impacted by the relative percentages of macronutrients like protein. They turned to food studies of bears in captivity. In one case, the bears were given the choice of foods of varying protein levels. The bears selected foods with protein levels in the 11-21% range, much lower than the 83% found in salmon, but right in the range of elderberry with 12.8%. In the end, it looks like all calories are not created equal. When given the choice, bears looked for a more moderate amount of protein. Elderberries may be the berry of choice, despite there being other available berries to choose from, simply because they occur in dense clumps which allows bears to eat vast numbers while expending minimal energy. As temperatures continue to warm, the trend looks like elderberries will continue to ripen earlier and earlier. Currently, they are ripening at a rate of 2-1/2 days earlier each decade. This would put the average ripening date at the same time as the peak salmon run by the year 2070. It's unknown how this will affect bears in the long run. Currently, the two foods normally occur sequentially, extending their feeding season. It will also depend on what other food options are available to bears once the salmon and elderberry harvest ends. I love it when science gets turned on its head. Sometimes the obvious conclusion just isn't the right one. This study helps to really show the importance of fruit to black and grizzly bears. It also has a local connections as we look to the end of buffaloberry season. This study helps to show why berries are critical to bears and it also means that it is even more important for us to protect the supply of berries for our local bear populations. Simply chopping down every buffaloberry bush in town is NOT the solution. Bears are creatures of habit. Once a location is a part of their regular foraging routine, they'll continue to return. If they don't find buffaloberries, then they may find…crabapples. Wildlife corridors should be for wildlife. Clear berry bushes from places like the Peaks, but the wildlife corridor berries should be left for the bears. If the berries are concentrated there, so will the bears be. If, as a community, we can get people to respect closures, than maybe we can help to keep the bears healthy and the wildlife corridors viable. Next up…the last spike The Last Spike Over the past few weeks, I've introduced you to the main players in the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This week, I want to talk about the completion of the line through the Kicking Horse and Roger's Passes. While the stories of adventure and exploration were taking place, the financiers and managers were doing everything they could to keep the flow of money coming…and many times, they were failing. In 1880, the government of Canada gave the contract to finish the CPR to a group of financiers led by George Stephen and Donald Smith. The contract required the line to be finished within 10 years and offered the "syndicate" a monopoly of the line along with $25 million in cash and 25 million acres of land grants in stages as they completed sections of the track. When the job was done, they would be given an additional 1,100 km of track already completed. The value of those lines was some $75 million. During the battles to pass the C.P.R. contract in the house, the conservatives had to defeat 23 different amendments during an excess of 30 sessions that extended past midnight. The ordeal took its toll on Macdonald who was confined to bed with severe bowel cramps when the contract was passed in parliament. When he left for England to recuperate, many believed they would never see him again. Stephen knew that it would be next to impossible to raise money in England due to the fiasco surrounding another Canadian railroad, the Grand Trunk. It had earned the nickname “The Big Suitcase” for the immense amounts of money it had managed to walk away with, without ever paying a penny in dividends. The Grand Trunk also did all it could to discredit the C.P.R., whom it saw as a competitor. When Stephen arrived in London, he was shocked to find that the newspapers were more interested in the fact that Jumbo the elephant had been sold to P.T. Barnum. This was a few years before John, Paul, George and Ringo, and Jumbo was the closest thing England had to a Rock Star…he was one famous elephant. Revenge can be sweet though, and Stephen had his chuckle when, just three weeks before the hammering of the last spike, a Grand Trunk locomotive ran over Jumbo and killed him. Financial difficulties were not long in arriving, and repeatedly, the syndicate had to ask the government for assistance. Each hand out made it more difficult to approve the next, and to cut costs, Sandford Fleming’s Yellowhead Pass route was abandoned for the shorter route through the Kicking Horse Pass. In the two years between 1880 and 1882, the company spent almost $59 million dollars, but barely collected $21 million. The remaining $37 million was not covered by the fact that they had less than $20 million in investor money. That left them with a whopping $17 million in debt. Thomas Shaughnessy, the C.P.R.’s purchasing agent managed to keep the line afloat through some interesting financial dealings. In one case, an American firm accused him of taking bribes to secure work, while not delivering. When he was hauled into Stephen’s office, he pulled out a collection of deposit slips, all to the C.P.R. account, which totaled exactly what the American firm had claimed. When asked if they had been bribes, he answered: “Of Course, but by God we needed the money didn’t we!” In the end it became clear that they needed at least another $27 million dollars in order to get the line through. The only way to get the funding would be for the government to, once again, bail the railway out. By Dec of 1883 Stephen was desperate, and he wired Prime Minister John A. Macdonald: "Things have now reached a point when we must either stop or find the means of going on. Our enemies here and elsewhere think they can now break us down and finish the CPR forever." While Macdonald had no interest in bailing out the railroad yet again, his Minister of Railways, John Henry Pope pointed out: "the day the Canadian Pacific busts the Conservative party busts the day after" Once again, the railroad was bailed out. In October, Stephen set out for one last fund raising trip to England. Along with him was Macdonald who was trying to escape the stress that pushing through the railroad aid bills had put on him. Finally, through a feat of financial finagling, Stephen managed to borrow $250,000 from a Scottish bank. He then sent off the most famous telegram in Canadian history to Smith—all it read was “Stand Fast Craigellachie” Smith and Stephen had grown up in Banffshire, Scotland, and a giant rock nearby had become a symbol of the clan Grant’s defiance during the clan wars—it was known as Craigellachie. This telegram was Stephen’s way of informing Smith that the funds were on the way. A final saving grace occurred when a Metis named Louis Riel, led a revolt against the government beginning in March of 1885. The Metis were of mixed blood French/Indian origin and had begun to attack settlements in the west and the troops were being sent in. Van Horne dedicated all the resources of the railroad to get 3,000 troops to the front in just 7 days. With this quick response, the uprising was quelled more quickly than expected. An earlier uprising had required 3 months to get troops to the front. Suddenly the railroad had shown it had more value, and the government bailed them out at the eleventh hour. Workers had not been paid for several months and were refusing to work. The banks had turned them down for any temporary loans, and when the government agreed to back their loan, Van Horne Stated that when they received the news: “We tossed up chairs to the ceiling; we tramped on desks; I believe we danced on tables. I do not fancy that any of us knows what occurred, and no one who was there can ever remember anything except loud yells of joy and the sound of things breaking.” Van Horne then sent out a hasty telegraph to Shaughnessy. All it said was: “Pay creditors now. Van Horne.” Stephen had lost all pleasure in the enterprise. The government sent appraisers to his vast Montreal mansion for security for his loan. They evaluated everything from his silverware to his underwear, and with a stroke of a pen, he signed it all away. In fact, he did not even go to the hammering of the last spike, but returned to Scotland to recover from the strain. The Last Spike Ceremony Finally, on Nov. 7, 1885 the day had arrived. The last spike would finally be hammered. The location was named Craigellachie in honour of the three word telegram that had saved the railway. But before I tell the story of our last spike, I like to share the story of the American last spike ceremony that occurred in 1869 in Promontory, Utah because no two events could be so wonderfully different. In Promontory Utah, there were two gold, and two silver spikes. The main spike had been forged at a cost of $400. Attached to the spikes were telegraph wires, so the whole country could hear it driven home. The Governor of California was on hand for the occasion and he had a specially designed silver maul, silver hammer with which to drive the stake. When everyone was in position and the cameras were ready, he raised that hammer and he brought it down…and he missed. He missed the last spike. That's okay because the telegraph operator sent the word "done" and simultaneous celebrations broke out from New York to San Francisco. They even rang the long silent liberty bell. When Van Horne was asked about what kind of ceremony he would like, he declared that '“...the only ceremony I fancy may occur will be the damning of the foreman for not driving it sooner...” He also declared that there would be no golden spike, that the last spike would be a plain iron spike, as good as all the rest. There were no heads of state or government at the hammering of our last spike, just some of the financiers and surveyors who would not have missed this moment, along with the workers that just happened to be there at the time. In the photograph, hammering the spike is Donald Smith, one of the main financiers. Behind him, with a stove pipe hat and patriarchal style beard is Sandford Fleming. To Fleming’s right, with his hands in his pockets, is William Cornelius Van Horne. Out of sight is Major A.B. Rogers, and way in the back, with a Stetson hat, peaking over the crowd, is a young Tom Wilson who would not have missed this day for the world. Now Donald Smith had heard the story of the Governor of California missing the spike, and we would have no such shenanigans here. And so when everything was ready, and the cameras were in position, he raised his hammer, took careful aim, and he brought it down…and he didn't miss!… …he bent it. He bent the last spike! It obviously had to be taken out, so we actually had two last spikes in Canada. It was later cut up into pieces to make souvenir pins for the many dignitaries that were not present. A new spike was put into place, and this time Smith drove the spike home. It was also immediately pulled out. The last thing we wanted was souvenir hunters tearing up the track as soon as we got it built. After the spike, there was silence, as the men pondered the friends they had made, the friends they had lost, and in more cases than not, just what the heck they were going to do next because with that simple act they were now unemployed. The silence was followed by a cheer and cries for a speech. We needed some words by which to mark the occasion…after all, what would the historians say? Finally Van Horne reluctantly agreed. He climbed on the platform, cleared his throat and stated: “All I can say is that the work has been done well in every way!” That was it. That was the entire text of the speech at our last spike ceremony. After that, Major A.B. Rogers, so taken by the moment, forgot about hiding his emotions, grabbed a piece of railroad tie and tried to thrust it into the ground to mark the spot. After a few minutes of private celebration, the sound of a train whistle and a call of “all aboard for the pacific” broke the silence. And for the first time, the train was able to continue over what had once been a gap in the tracks, and that little train chugged its way into history. The last spike had been removed shortly after the dignitaries left by Frank Brothers. In the famous photograph of the event, he's the bearded man on the left of the image looking directly at the camera. He later presented it to Edward Beatty who became the first Canadian born president of the CPR. It was reportedly stolen from his desk and at that point it was largely lost in history. In 2012, the mystery of the missing spike may have finally been solved. Rumour has it that the spike somehow made its way to railroad surveyor Henry Cambie, who in turn gave it to the chief of the patent office in Ottawa, W.J. Lynch. It was to be a gift for his son, Arthur who was a railroad buff. From Arthur it made its way to his daughter, Margo Remnant. The spike was silver plated and fashioned into the handle of a knife blade. Metallurgical studies showed it was consistent with the metal used in spikes at the time. In 2012, Remnant's widow presented it to the Museum of Civilization where hopefully it will find a permanent home. And with that, it's time to wrap this episode up. I want to thank you for sharing your time with me and I appreciate you hitting the subscribe button so that you don't miss any future episodes. Ward Cameron Enterprises is your specialist on guided hikes, tours and photography outings across the mountain west. If you'd like to make the most of your mountain experience drop us a line at info@wardcameron.com or hit me up on Twitter @wardcameron. Don't forget you can always comment and find links to additional information in the show notes at www.mountainnaturepodcast.com/ep042. And with that said, the sun's out and it's time to go hiking. I'll see you next week.

When Stephen tells the Jewish leadership that they are resisting the Holy Spirit they respond by stoning him to death (Pastor Gene Pensiero)

When Stephen expressed his support for the broad purposes of the recent Women’s March but also said he had reservations, he got huge feedback from his listeners. Most of it was positive, and there were some important questions. In this podcast, he answers those questions, which carries him through the pages of scripture and into [read more]

We may have said this before and if so, we feel it is definitely worth repeating. Wow, it is so darn educational and amazing to speak with someone who has been in the comics industry for so darn long. This is why every Halloween, Adam looks forward to speaking with one of his favorite Making Comics Gutter Talk guests, Stephen Bissette. For the third year in a row, Stephen dispels humor, knowledge, and all around good times. When Stephen talks about the history of comics, he's not just talking about what has happened in the past. That side of the timeline has been well-documented and will forever be. In this episode Stephen does talk about the past but he also is sure to talk about the history of comics as both the present and the future. This also includes when he is teaching young, impressionable minds at the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT. And yet when his students challenge him on a topic, Stephen becomes the student in order to return to being a more effective teacher. In the example he gave, a student challenged him on Native American comics and culture. This caused Stephen to do his own homework, a great example that no matter who we speak with, we can never stop learning. To open the Gutter Talk episode, just as we have done in previous Halloween episodes, we have a reading of an Edgar Allen Poe story. This year's story was "The Cask of Amontillado" and was read by a horror master in his own right, Vincent Price. Boy, Poe sure does like burying things in his stories, huh? Happy Halloween! Stephen's Links: Stephen's website (@SRBissette) Center for Cartoon Studies Our Links: "The Dracula Files" by Storyforge Productions Intro & Outro Song: "RetroFuture Clean" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Outro Song Behind Vocals: "Backed Vibes (clean)" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Transitions: InceptionBrassHitMedium.wav: Herbert Boland / www.freesound.org Old Fashion Radio Jingle 2.wav: club sound / www.freesound.org

We finish Stephen’s story of his trial in front of the religious leaders this week by seeing the outcome of his confrontation: death. When Stephen defends his position to the Jewish Ruling Council he does it by retracing the Jewish heritage and history to the people who thought they knew it the best. Stephen tells their history in a way that would have been unfamiliar to those who thought they knew the story. He tells the story through a lens that shows God sending prophet after prophet and God’s people rejecting those prophets. Stephen’s critique is a rejection of their power and that they are missing the true prophet right in their midst, Jesus.

Military Men and Women Matter with John Falkenbury: Have you ever wondered how service men and women adapt and grow from service troubles? Or if there was some way you can help to do something that could benefit their lives? Well today we have the president of the North Carolina USO with us, Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel John Falkenbury. He is going to talk with us about what the USO does and how they help our military overcome struggles they are faced with. John currently lives in the Charlotte area and travels at least once a week to their state office in Raleigh. He is a third generation career military with his grandfather, father and brother also serving. His family has a history of serving during times of peace and war. In 1999, John retired from the Army to take over a family business. Their family business was a nursing home. It was a change of pace for him but definitely the right thing to do. When 9-11 occurred, he felt an urge to volunteer and go back. He had several good friends telling him that he was doing exactly what he needed to be doing at that time. He was currently telling his army story and the military story on radios and television in the Charlotte and Raleigh areas. John heard about how the North Carolina USO was undergoing some changes and their need for a president. He applied and was offered the job in 2009. The North Carolina USO is the oldest operating USO in the world because of their Camp Lejeune center. In 2003 that was their only remaining center in the state. Since then they have opened nine more centers and a mobile unit. They are one of the few, besides the National USO, that has a mobile unit. All of their funding comes from within the state from the generosity of Carolinians. The USO, as a whole, has been serving wounded and hurting service members consistently for 75 years now. It is much bigger than entertainment and airport lounges. Many people associate the USO with those things. Their national mission is to connect service members with their family, home and nation. They fill the gap where the military services can’t fulfill. They have multiple programs that help a service member when they enter into the service, during their time of serving, exiting the service and after they have served. The USO works hand in hand with the military. They don’t replicate services because that isn’t a good use of their funds. They will continue to do the airport lounges, the home comings, the send offs, as well as reading bedtime stories to children but more importantly, they have to be there for the resiliency programs, the transition phases and the multitude of other programs they offer. The USO has an amazing honor support team. If a service member is killed overseas, the team ensures they are treated with respect on their way back home. They make sure the plane is there waiting to receive the casket and the Honor Guard is there to escort the member to their final resting place. If someone is traveling throughout the country, the USO network activates. They communicate between each other to help with the travel making sure nobody is alone. Among many other things, the North Carolina USO will focus on a service member and their spouse during the time of separation from the military. They will teach them how to build their resumes, dress for success and will do mock interviews. Their goal is to not only educate the service member on getting a job but to also educate the corporate world. One thing they do around the state is hold HR Summits for companies. They want these companies to know the military culture, the rank structure, awards, things that aren’t appropriate to say or ask a military member. They will also offer job fairs to help the member get connected with companies that are looking to hire. The North Carolina USO really goes above and beyond to help our service members transition into a civilian lifestyle. The North Carolina USO has many programs such as the resiliency program and the reset program. The resiliency program teaches techniques of how to overcome negative self-talk. Negative self-talk can lead to much heavier internal conflicts.  The reset program has a resiliency part to it and adds in life skills to incorporate into the home life. Stephen has had the honor of speaking at both programs. When Stephen was at his first resiliency program, he spoke for about 30 minutes. He had a young man come up to him afterwards and said that he really connected with Stephen’s story. That young man also shared that he was planning on taking his own life that night but had changed his mind. The Journey Principles has a goal to help reduce military suicide by 10%. We have locked arms in multiple ways with the North Carolina USO. And each time our relationship gets stronger. In September we are partnering with them to host an event called Light Up the Darkness. The goal of this event is to raise awareness and funds to continue serving service members and their families. John talks about the greatest struggle in the military with active service members. He says it is operational tempo and declining resources. One of the first things to get cut in the military is the family resources. That is where the USO fills the gap. They are here to help not only the service member but also their family. As a nation we owe a debt of gratitude to these service members. We have been in a war for 13 plus years now and 98-99% of the American citizens have not been directly affected by it. There is currently 1%, or less, that is serving in the military. And they continue to do so freely and without reservation. We should be proud of our men and women serving for the country. There are many ways that you can help this amazing organization! They are always accepting donations either online or via mail. 92 cents of every dollar goes towards these amazing programs John tells us about. But money is not the only way someone can help. Giving your time is also a great way to contribute towards their cause. The heart of their volunteers is what keeps this organization going. And one more way you can help the USO is by donating items. For example a company just came into the USO lounge at the Raleigh airport and redecorated. It helps make these service members feel more at home. You can get in contact with the North Carolina USO through their website, uso-nc.org or through Twitter and Facebook. All the centers across the state also have their own Facebook page. We know that today’s podcast was a little different than most of our others. But we sincerely hope you enjoyed hearing about this great organization and how they help our military overcome their struggles. The USO is truly an amazing organization that has passion and dedication to helping and serving the ones who so selflessly serve us. Please like, share and comment if you enjoyed the show. Also continue to send in your questions and comments to us, feedback@journeyprinciples.com. Until next time, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Stephen Scoggins The Journey Principles, and on Twitter, Stephen_scoggin. We look forward to seeing you again on the next Journey Principles!

Buying a home? Click here to perform a full home searchSelling a home? Click here for a FREE Home Value ReportToday I’m here with Stephen Bay of Eco Consulting. Eco Consulting is an energy assessment company, and Stephen ensures that homes are energy efficient and educates people on ways to make their homes energy efficient. They don’t sell any products, and there is zero cost for using their services. All of their revenue comes out of the utility companies. Stephen is here to help you save money on your utility bill!Eco Consulting has been popular because they can come into your home and install free light bulbs because they use utility rebates to cover the cost. In fact, they have installed more than 90,000 LED bulbs for free! Their goal is to make residential energy use go down in Seattle. They do not sell any products, although there are a variety of companies that do sell products. However, Eco Consulting should not try to sell you anything, and they have won awards for their services in the Seattle area. When Stephen comes into your home he will perform a visual inspection and let you know what you qualify for when it comes to utility rebates. You can get up to $1,200 for a new heating system, depending on the type of unit you have. If utility companies can reduce usage, they no longer need to build more infrastructure to provide power to people. In the long run, this will save the utility companies a lot of money. An energy audit will usually take anywhere from 45 minutes to a few hours. It depends on the size of the home, and it also depends on whether or not the customer has questions or concerns. Part of Stephen’s goal is to educate his customers about how to become more energy efficient.There are a lot of different things that you can do yourself if you’d like to improve the overall efficiency of your home. Stephen finds a lot of good tips here. We also encourage you to reach out to Stephen if you have questions.Please spread the word about this service, because Eco Consulting doesn’t spend any money on marketing or advertising. They are also looking for Energy Ambassadors to help spread the word. If you educate ten people and they sign up for their free services, you can get a free lantern from LuminAID, and you will be also be entered to win eco-friendly upgrades for your home. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me!

How does the Old Testament related to the New Testament and why does it matter for my life? When Stephen is accused of blaspheming God and God's Word, he shows that God's people regularly sinned and the only solution to sin is Jesus Christ.

To kick-off the new year, I'm having a month long "Freelancing School" where each week you get a blog post and a podcast episode based on one of your first four years in building a freelance animation business. This week it's all about what to expect when you finally decide to make that jump. We talk about how to pitch for jobs and where to find them, whether or not to take low paying gigs, how to quote for animation and some of the big changes that happen (like taxes and insurance). If you've been thinking about making a go at being a freelancer, January's selection of shows and posts is a good place to start! Sign up for the newsletter or become a Patron on my Patreon page to get the more detailed ebook in February on starting a freelance business. And don't forget to check out the companion blog post with this podcast to read a more structured write-up on what to expect in your first year of being a Freelancer! Listen for Jessie Katzenflippenburgers, the captain's thermos bag, scatman, and the $1 one-hour movie Please Rate & Review us on iTunes And you can now listen to us out on SoundCloud!  Topics & Timestamps: (7:09) What's on the Show (10:52) Your (and our) 1st Client... getting started (18:13) When Stephen decided that animation was his career (20:23) Freelancing like Standup Comedy (22:53) Ways to Learn (and get into) Animation (28:08) Understanding Name-Brand through the world of Modern Art (34:15) The benefit of being young (40:46) Client Types: The Poker Chip Metaphor (46:43) What changes happen to your life when you go into Freelance (55:08) Networking and finding what works with your own personality (1:01:07) How to Pitch for a job (1:13:34) How to Quote a budget for animation (1:32:41) Final Words and more on networking   Check out more of your hosts: Stephen Brooks Rob Yulfo And please Rate/Review us on iTunes  Subscribe on SoundCloud  ... and Rate/Review us on Stitcher while you're at it! (=

Stephen Young has had a hard road in his relationship with his family and with God.  His addiction to pornography as a younger man lead to an unhealthy relationship with his first wife, adultery and an abandonment of his kids.  By repairing his relationship with God Stephen was able to repair his relationship with his children.  This is his journey.   “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” - Romans 8:1   Biggest Weakness -   Stephen exposed hat he has a pornography and sexual deviancy addiction.  For a long time he did not have respect for women or understanding.  Satan has very powerful tools and this one is wicked.  The problem began in 4th and 5th grade. Biggest Strength - Stephens willingness to talk about life and Christ. Dark time - His darkest time when when he divorced his first wife and left his kids.  Stephen pictured his kids as being hung on a cross.  His thought was that it would be easier for his kids if he stayed away, but later came to realize that he was being selfish. You must admit you’re a liar and cheat before you move on.  Stephen stopped believing the Lord loved him or that he could continue in the marriage. Aha moment - When Stephen left the marriage he believed that God would never love him again, but his children had given him a bible and after seeing it in his stepdaughter’s room he heard God’s voice saying “I still Love you.”  He immediately went to his wife Karen and said he wanted Christ in their lives. Person of Inspiration - Pastor Steve inspired Stephen and Karen though his preaching to decide to be baptized.  Karen said, “we must surrender rather than try.”  The breath of God is in us. Now Stephen can feel the Holy Spirit guide him.  “When you lose everything, the Lord still provides and at that point you really understand it.” Advice - Become open and get rid of your secrets first.  Tell the ones you love of your struggles and sins.  Do not listen to your emotions, rather turn toward Jesus for answers. God’s Men of Influence - Be willing to surrender and allow God to use you. Stephen’s Church - Calvary Church in Lake Arrowhead. Baptized November 11 Best advice given - Stay married.  With God he could’ve done it, but he didn’t. Recommended Book - “The Calvary Road” by Roy Hession Recommended Charity - “Pregnancy Resource Center” Contact - welink2@gmail.com , 760-445-2992 For past shows and to learn more about the God's Men of Influence community, check us out atwww.godsmenofinfluence.org Join us on Facebook for our daily devotionals and updates and please like our page www.facebook.com/GodsMenOfInfluence     Help us spread the Word and please rate our show on itunes and leave comments for us. Tell us what insights you took from this episode.

Stephen Palmer has been through many stages since he started his first entrepreneurial enterprise at age 15.  He shares how he used the cash flow from real estate to parlay himself into a passionate writing career and even further into creating businesses that align with his core values. He shares his understanding of the abundance mindset and how he's used it to start several small businesses and take them from start up to living his dream. Stephen Palmer is the author of Manifest Destiny: Choosing a Life of Greatness and Uncommon Sense: A Common Citizen’s Guide to Rebuilding America, the founder of Life Manifestos, a Strongbrook business owner, and a book ghostwriter for mission-driven leaders. Stephen Palmer co-authored, with Garrett Gunderson, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Businessweek, and Amazon bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity. He also co-authored, with Kris Krohn, The Conscious Creator: 6 Laws for Manifesting Your Masterpiece Life, as well as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interactions with Carl Woolston. A political independent and dedicated learner and promoter of personal, financial, and governmental freedom, Stephen Palmer is passionate about political philosophy, economics, history, personal finance, entrepreneurship, religion and spirituality, family, education and culture. (See Stephen's favorite books and movies.) Stephen Palmer graduated from a liberal arts college where he was mentored by Oliver DeMille. Stephen Palmer has also been privileged to be mentored by Steve D’Annunzio. Stephen Palmer is also a graduate and faculty member of Wizard Academy, a “non-traditional business school” with an emphasis on the art and science of persuasive communication. Stephen Palmer and his wife, “Queen Karina,” are raising their four children in southern Utah. When Stephen is not writing or spending time with his family, you’ll find him reading, gardening, or canyoneering in Zion National Park.   http://stephendpalmer.com http://www.facebook.com/stephenpalmer76 http://pinterest.com/stephenpalmer76 http://www.youtube.com/causeofliberty  

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. There is one point missing in William Shakespeare's romantic tribute to great persons, they are not always immediately appreciated. Some historical figures like Vincent van Gogh wait for decades, patiently in their deaths, before their names receive world acknowledgement. Stephen Hawking is lucky in this sense, the scientist's best-seller "A Brief History of Time" has allowed us - his contemporaries - to realize his brilliance as he continues a life-long struggle with motor neuron disease. But the greatness of his ex-wife, Jane Wilde, is yet to be explored in the movie "The Theory of Everything". Inspired by Jane's memoir "Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen Hawking", the biographical romance is told from a female perspective. It is true director James Marsh's film describes how Stephen Hawking achieved international fame in the world of science. Screenwriter Anthony McCarten's story is not about archaic laboratories or indecipherable formulae on dusty blackboards, it is about the love story of Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde. He is a science dude who studies cosmology - which he calls the religion for intelligent atheists, and she is an arts student who goes to the Church of England. It is extraordinary the two young students so different from each other could hit it off, but even more extraordinary is their life together, during which Stephen developed his famous theorem about time while Jane took care of his needs in the family. They tried to live a normal life and be a normal family for two and a half decades, until the debilitating disease became an insurmountable obstacle for the union. Unlike director James Marsh's previous work on the thriller "Shadow Dancer" which is full of suspension and foreboding, "The Theory of Everything" takes on a lighter tone, all the while stressing the loving aspects of their relationship and flowing smoothly in warm-colored shots and emotions. Eddie Redmayne as the wheel-chaired professor is charged with the task to reproduce Stephen's good sense of humor and the progressive symptoms; he is very effective in making the audience feel for the victims of the ALS disease: certainly more effective than most who took the ice-bucket challenge. Felicity Jones shows strength in a quiet way and proves Jane's devotion and perseverance in everything the couple has achieved jointly. When Stephen was diagnosed with the terminal disease, he was given two years to live. Now half a century has passed the cosmologist is still exploring the universe at Cambridge; he owes that at least in part to Jane Wilde. "The Theory of Everything" is a recollection of the happy moments in Stephen and Jane's relationship, and the filmmakers have done a great job sharing these moments with a greater audience.

Jesus’ Early Manhood (1407.1) 128:0.1 AS JESUS of Nazareth entered upon the early years of his adult life, he had lived, and continued to live, a normal and average human life on earth. Jesus came into this world just as other children come; he had nothing to do with selecting his parents. He did choose this particular world as the planet whereon to carry out his seventh and final bestowal, his incarnation in the likeness of mortal flesh, but otherwise he entered the world in a natural manner, growing up as a child of the realm and wrestling with the vicissitudes of his environment just as do other mortals on this and on similar worlds. (1407.2) 128:0.2 Always be mindful of the twofold purpose of Michael’s bestowal on Urantia: (1407.3) 128:0.3 1. The mastering of the experience of living the full life of a human creature in mortal flesh, the completion of his sovereignty in Nebadon. (1407.4) 128:0.4 2. The revelation of the Universal Father to the mortal dwellers on the worlds of time and space and the more effective leading of these same mortals to a better understanding of the Universal Father. (1407.5) 128:0.5 All other creature benefits and universe advantages were incidental and secondary to these major purposes of the mortal bestowal. 1. The Twenty-First Year (A.D. 15) (1407.6) 128:1.1 With the attainment of adult years Jesus began in earnest and with full self-consciousness the task of completing the experience of mastering the knowledge of the life of his lowest form of intelligent creatures, thereby finally and fully earning the right of unqualified rulership of his self-created universe. He entered upon this stupendous task fully realizing his dual nature. But he had already effectively combined these two natures into one — Jesus of Nazareth. (1407.7) 128:1.2 Joshua ben Joseph knew full well that he was a man, a mortal man, born of woman. This is shown in the selection of his first title, the Son of Man. He was truly a partaker of flesh and blood, and even now, as he presides in sovereign authority over the destinies of a universe, he still bears among his numerous well-earned titles that of Son of Man. It is literally true that the creative Word — the Creator Son — of the Universal Father was “made flesh and dwelt as a man of the realm on Urantia.” He labored, grew weary, rested, and slept. He hungered and satisfied such cravings with food; he thirsted and quenched his thirst with water. He experienced the full gamut of human feelings and emotions; he was “in all things tested, even as you are,” and he suffered and died. (1407.8) 128:1.3 He obtained knowledge, gained experience, and combined these into wisdom, just as do other mortals of the realm. Until after his baptism he availed himself of no supernatural power. He employed no agency not a part of his human endowment as a son of Joseph and Mary. (1408.1) 128:1.4 As to the attributes of his prehuman existence, he emptied himself. Prior to the beginning of his public work his knowledge of men and events was wholly self-limited. He was a true man among men. (1408.2) 128:1.5 It is forever and gloriously true: “We have a high ruler who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. We have a Sovereign who was in all points tested and tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” And since he himself has suffered, being tested and tried, he is abundantly able to understand and minister to those who are confused and distressed. (1408.3) 128:1.6 The Nazareth carpenter now fully understood the work before him, but he chose to live his human life in the channel of its natural flowing. And in some of these matters he is indeed an example to his mortal creatures, even as it is recorded: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being of the nature of God, thought it not strange to be equal with God. But he made himself to be of little import and, taking upon himself the form of a creature, was born in the likeness of mankind. And being thus fashioned as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.” (1408.4) 128:1.7 He lived his mortal life just as all others of the human family may live theirs, “who in the days of the flesh so frequently offered up prayers and supplications, even with strong feelings and tears, to Him who is able to save from all evil, and his prayers were effective because he believed.” Wherefore it behooved him in every respect to be made like his brethren that he might become a merciful and understanding sovereign ruler over them. (1408.5) 128:1.8 Of his human nature he was never in doubt; it was self-evident and always present in his consciousness. But of his divine nature there was always room for doubt and conjecture, at least this was true right up to the event of his baptism. The self-realization of divinity was a slow and, from the human standpoint, a natural evolutionary revelation. This revelation and self-realization of divinity began in Jerusalem when he was not quite thirteen years old with the first supernatural occurrence of his human existence; and this experience of effecting the self-realization of his divine nature was completed at the time of his second supernatural experience while in the flesh, the episode attendant upon his baptism by John in the Jordan, which event marked the beginning of his public career of ministry and teaching. (1408.6) 128:1.9 Between these two celestial visitations, one in his thirteenth year and the other at his baptism, there occurred nothing supernatural or superhuman in the life of this incarnated Creator Son. Notwithstanding this, the babe of Bethlehem, the lad, youth, and man of Nazareth, was in reality the incarnated Creator of a universe; but he never once used aught of this power, nor did he utilize the guidance of celestial personalities, aside from that of his guardian seraphim, in the living of his human life up to the day of his baptism by John. And we who thus testify know whereof we speak. (1408.7) 128:1.10 And yet, throughout all these years of his life in the flesh he was truly divine. He was actually a Creator Son of the Paradise Father. When once he had espoused his public career, subsequent to the technical completion of his purely mortal experience of sovereignty acquirement, he did not hesitate publicly to admit that he was the Son of God. He did not hesitate to declare, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” He made no protest in later years when he was called Lord of Glory, Ruler of a Universe, the Lord God of all creation, the Holy One of Israel, the Lord of all, our Lord and our God, God with us, having a name above every name and on all worlds, the Omnipotence of a universe, the Universe Mind of this creation, the One in whom are hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge, the fullness of Him who fills all things, the eternal Word of the eternal God, the One who was before all things and in whom all things consist, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the Upholder of a universe, the Judge of all the earth, the Giver of life eternal, the True Shepherd, the Deliverer of the worlds, and the Captain of our salvation. (1409.1) 128:1.11 He never objected to any of these titles as they were applied to him subsequent to the emergence from his purely human life into the later years of his self-consciousness of the ministry of divinity in humanity, and for humanity, and to humanity on this world and for all other worlds. Jesus objected to but one title as applied to him: When he was once called Immanuel, he merely replied, “Not I, that is my elder brother.” (1409.2) 128:1.12 Always, even after his emergence into the larger life on earth, Jesus was submissively subject to the will of the Father in heaven. (1409.3) 128:1.13 After his baptism he thought nothing of permitting his sincere believers and grateful followers to worship him. Even while he wrestled with poverty and toiled with his hands to provide the necessities of life for his family, his awareness that he was a Son of God was growing; he knew that he was the maker of the heavens and this very earth whereon he was now living out his human existence. And the hosts of celestial beings throughout the great and onlooking universe likewise knew that this man of Nazareth was their beloved Sovereign and Creator-father. A profound suspense pervaded the universe of Nebadon throughout these years; all celestial eyes were continuously focused on Urantia — on Palestine. (1409.4) 128:1.14 This year Jesus went up to Jerusalem with Joseph to celebrate the Passover. Having taken James to the temple for consecration, he deemed it his duty to take Joseph. Jesus never exhibited any degree of partiality in dealing with his family. He went with Joseph to Jerusalem by the usual Jordan valley route, but he returned to Nazareth by the east Jordan way, which led through Amathus. Going down the Jordan, Jesus narrated Jewish history to Joseph and on the return trip told him about the experiences of the reputed tribes of Ruben, Gad, and Gilead that traditionally had dwelt in these regions east of the river. (1409.5) 128:1.15 Joseph asked Jesus many leading questions concerning his life mission, but to most of these inquiries Jesus would only reply, “My hour has not yet come.” However, in these intimate discussions many words were dropped which Joseph remembered during the stirring events of subsequent years. Jesus, with Joseph, spent this Passover with his three friends at Bethany, as was his custom when in Jerusalem attending these festival commemorations. 2. The Twenty-Second Year (A.D. 16) (1409.6) 128:2.1 This was one of several years during which Jesus’ brothers and sisters were facing the trials and tribulations peculiar to the problems and readjustments of adolescence. Jesus now had brothers and sisters ranging in ages from seven to eighteen, and he was kept busy helping them to adjust themselves to the new awakenings of their intellectual and emotional lives. He had thus to grapple with the problems of adolescence as they became manifest in the lives of his younger brothers and sisters. (1410.1) 128:2.2 This year Simon graduated from school and began work with Jesus’ old boyhood playmate and ever-ready defender, Jacob the stone mason. As a result of several family conferences it was decided that it was unwise for all the boys to take up carpentry. It was thought that by diversifying their trades they would be prepared to take contracts for putting up entire buildings. Again, they had not all kept busy since three of them had been working as full-time carpenters. (1410.2) 128:2.3 Jesus continued this year at house finishing and cabinetwork but spent most of his time at the caravan repair shop. James was beginning to alternate with him in attendance at the shop. The latter part of this year, when carpenter work was slack about Nazareth, Jesus left James in charge of the repair shop and Joseph at the home bench while he went over to Sepphoris to work with a smith. He worked six months with metals and acquired considerable skill at the anvil. (1410.3) 128:2.4 Before taking up his new employment at Sepphoris, Jesus held one of his periodic family conferences and solemnly installed James, then just past eighteen years old, as acting head of the family. He promised his brother hearty support and full co-operation and exacted formal promises of obedience to James from each member of the family. From this day James assumed full financial responsibility for the family, Jesus making his weekly payments to his brother. Never again did Jesus take the reins out of James’s hands. While working at Sepphoris he could have walked home every night if necessary, but he purposely remained away, assigning weather and other reasons, but his true motive was to train James and Joseph in the bearing of the family responsibility. He had begun the slow process of weaning his family. Each Sabbath Jesus returned to Nazareth, and sometimes during the week when occasion required, to observe the working of the new plan, to give advice and offer helpful suggestions. (1410.4) 128:2.5 Living much of the time in Sepphoris for six months afforded Jesus a new opportunity to become better acquainted with the gentile viewpoint of life. He worked with gentiles, lived with gentiles, and in every possible manner did he make a close and painstaking study of their habits of living and of the gentile mind. (1410.5) 128:2.6 The moral standards of this home city of Herod Antipas were so far below those of even the caravan city of Nazareth that after six months’ sojourn at Sepphoris Jesus was not averse to finding an excuse for returning to Nazareth. The group he worked for were to become engaged on public work in both Sepphoris and the new city of Tiberias, and Jesus was disinclined to have anything to do with any sort of employment under the supervision of Herod Antipas. And there were still other reasons which made it wise, in the opinion of Jesus, for him to go back to Nazareth. When he returned to the repair shop, he did not again assume the personal direction of family affairs. He worked in association with James at the shop and as far as possible permitted him to continue oversight of the home. James’s management of family expenditures and his administration of the home budget were undisturbed. (1410.6) 128:2.7 It was by just such wise and thoughtful planning that Jesus prepared the way for his eventual withdrawal from active participation in the affairs of his family. When James had had two years’ experience as acting head of the family — and two full years before he (James) was to be married — Joseph was placed in charge of the household funds and intrusted with the general management of the home. 3. The Twenty-Third Year (A.D. 17) (1411.1) 128:3.1 This year the financial pressure was slightly relaxed as four were at work. Miriam earned considerable by the sale of milk and butter; Martha had become an expert weaver. The purchase price of the repair shop was over one third paid. The situation was such that Jesus stopped work for three weeks to take Simon to Jerusalem for the Passover, and this was the longest period away from daily toil he had enjoyed since the death of his father. (1411.2) 128:3.2 They journeyed to Jerusalem by way of the Decapolis and through Pella, Gerasa, Philadelphia, Heshbon, and Jericho. They returned to Nazareth by the coast route, touching Lydda, Joppa, Caesarea, thence around Mount Carmel to Ptolemais and Nazareth. This trip fairly well acquainted Jesus with the whole of Palestine north of the Jerusalem district. (1411.3) 128:3.3 At Philadelphia Jesus and Simon became acquainted with a merchant from Damascus who developed such a great liking for the Nazareth couple that he insisted they stop with him at his Jerusalem headquarters. While Simon gave attendance at the temple, Jesus spent much of his time talking with this well-educated and much-traveled man of world affairs. This merchant owned over four thousand caravan camels; he had interests all over the Roman world and was now on his way to Rome. He proposed that Jesus come to Damascus to enter his Oriental import business, but Jesus explained that he did not feel justified in going so far away from his family just then. But on the way back home he thought much about these distant cities and the even more remote countries of the Far West and the Far East, countries he had so frequently heard spoken of by the caravan passengers and conductors. (1411.4) 128:3.4 Simon greatly enjoyed his visit to Jerusalem. He was duly received into the commonwealth of Israel at the Passover consecration of the new sons of the commandment. While Simon attended the Passover ceremonies, Jesus mingled with the throngs of visitors and engaged in many interesting personal conferences with numerous gentile proselytes. (1411.5) 128:3.5 Perhaps the most notable of all these contacts was the one with a young Hellenist named Stephen. This young man was on his first visit to Jerusalem and chanced to meet Jesus on Thursday afternoon of Passover week. While they both strolled about viewing the Asmonean palace, Jesus began the casual conversation that resulted in their becoming interested in each other, and which led to a four-hour discussion of the way of life and the true God and his worship. Stephen was tremendously impressed with what Jesus said; he never forgot his words. (1411.6) 128:3.6 And this was the same Stephen who subsequently became a believer in the teachings of Jesus, and whose boldness in preaching this early gospel resulted in his being stoned to death by irate Jews. Some of Stephen’s extraordinary boldness in proclaiming his view of the new gospel was the direct result of this earlier interview with Jesus. But Stephen never even faintly surmised that the Galilean he had talked with some fifteen years previously was the very same person whom he later proclaimed the world’s Savior, and for whom he was so soon to die, thus becoming the first martyr of the newly evolving Christian faith. When Stephen yielded up his life as the price of his attack upon the Jewish temple and its traditional practices, there stood by one named Saul, a citizen of Tarsus. And when Saul saw how this Greek could die for his faith, there were aroused in his heart those emotions which eventually led him to espouse the cause for which Stephen died; later on he became the aggressive and indomitable Paul, the philosopher, if not the sole founder, of the Christian religion. (1412.1) 128:3.7 On the Sunday after Passover week Simon and Jesus started on their way back to Nazareth. Simon never forgot what Jesus taught him on this trip. He had always loved Jesus, but now he felt that he had begun to know his father-brother. They had many heart-to-heart talks as they journeyed through the country and prepared their meals by the wayside. They arrived home Thursday noon, and Simon kept the family up late that night relating his experiences. (1412.2) 128:3.8 Mary was much upset by Simon’s report that Jesus spent most of the time when in Jerusalem “visiting with the strangers, especially those from the far countries.” Jesus’ family never could comprehend his great interest in people, his urge to visit with them, to learn about their way of living, and to find out what they were thinking about. (1412.3) 128:3.9 More and more the Nazareth family became engrossed with their immediate and human problems; not often was mention made of the future mission of Jesus, and very seldom did he himself speak of his future career. His mother rarely thought about his being a child of promise. She was slowly giving up the idea that Jesus was to fulfill any divine mission on earth, yet at times her faith was revived when she paused to recall the Gabriel visitation before the child was born. 4. The Damascus Episode (1412.4) 128:4.1 The last four months of this year Jesus spent in Damascus as the guest of the merchant whom he first met at Philadelphia when on his way to Jerusalem. A representative of this merchant had sought out Jesus when passing through Nazareth and escorted him to Damascus. This part-Jewish merchant proposed to devote an extraordinary sum of money to the establishment of a school of religious philosophy at Damascus. He planned to create a center of learning which would out-rival Alexandria. And he proposed that Jesus should immediately begin a long tour of the world’s educational centers preparatory to becoming the head of this new project. This was one of the greatest temptations that Jesus ever faced in the course of his purely human career. (1412.5) 128:4.2 Presently this merchant brought before Jesus a group of twelve merchants and bankers who agreed to support this newly projected school. Jesus manifested deep interest in the proposed school, helped them plan for its organization, but always expressed the fear that his other and unstated but prior obligations would prevent his accepting the direction of such a pretentious enterprise. His would-be benefactor was persistent, and he profitably employed Jesus at his home doing some translating while he, his wife, and their sons and daughters sought to prevail upon Jesus to accept the proffered honor. But he would not consent. He well knew that his mission on earth was not to be supported by institutions of learning; he knew that he must not obligate himself in the least to be directed by the “councils of men,” no matter how well-intentioned. (1412.6) 128:4.3 He who was rejected by the Jerusalem religious leaders, even after he had demonstrated his leadership, was recognized and hailed as a master teacher by the businessmen and bankers of Damascus, and all this when he was an obscure and unknown carpenter of Nazareth. (1412.7) 128:4.4 He never spoke about this offer to his family, and the end of this year found him back in Nazareth going about his daily duties just as if he had never been tempted by the flattering propositions of his Damascus friends. Neither did these men of Damascus ever associate the later citizen of Capernaum who turned all Jewry upside down with the former carpenter of Nazareth who had dared to refuse the honor which their combined wealth might have procured. (1413.1) 128:4.5 Jesus most cleverly and intentionally contrived to detach various episodes of his life so that they never became, in the eyes of the world, associated together as the doings of a single individual. Many times in subsequent years he listened to the recital of this very story of the strange Galilean who declined the opportunity of founding a school in Damascus to compete with Alexandria. (1413.2) 128:4.6 One purpose which Jesus had in mind, when he sought to segregate certain features of his earthly experience, was to prevent the building up of such a versatile and spectacular career as would cause subsequent generations to venerate the teacher in place of obeying the truth which he had lived and taught. Jesus did not want to build up such a human record of achievement as would attract attention from his teaching. Very early he recognized that his followers would be tempted to formulate a religion about him which might become a competitor of the gospel of the kingdom that he intended to proclaim to the world. Accordingly, he consistently sought to suppress everything during his eventful career which he thought might be made to serve this natural human tendency to exalt the teacher in place of proclaiming his teachings. (1413.3) 128:4.7 This same motive also explains why he permitted himself to be known by different titles during various epochs of his diversified life on earth. Again, he did not want to bring any undue influence to bear upon his family or others which would lead them to believe in him against their honest convictions. He always refused to take undue or unfair advantage of the human mind. He did not want men to believe in him unless their hearts were responsive to the spiritual realities revealed in his teachings. (1413.4) 128:4.8 By the end of this year the Nazareth home was running fairly smoothly. The children were growing up, and Mary was becoming accustomed to Jesus’ being away from home. He continued to turn over his earnings to James for the support of the family, retaining only a small portion for his immediate personal expenses. (1413.5) 128:4.9 As the years passed, it became more difficult to realize that this man was a Son of God on earth. He seemed to become quite like an individual of the realm, just another man among men. And it was ordained by the Father in heaven that the bestowal should unfold in this very way. 5. The Twenty-Fourth Year (A.D. 18) (1413.6) 128:5.1 This was Jesus’ first year of comparative freedom from family responsibility. James was very successful in managing the home with Jesus’ help in counsel and finances. (1413.7) 128:5.2 The week following the Passover of this year a young man from Alexandria came down to Nazareth to arrange for a meeting, later in the year, between Jesus and a group of Alexandrian Jews at some point on the Palestinian coast. This conference was set for the middle of June, and Jesus went over to Caesarea to meet with five prominent Jews of Alexandria, who besought him to establish himself in their city as a religious teacher, offering as an inducement to begin with, the position of assistant to the chazan in their chief synagogue. (1414.1) 128:5.3 The spokesmen for this committee explained to Jesus that Alexandria was destined to become the headquarters of Jewish culture for the entire world; that the Hellenistic trend of Jewish affairs had virtually outdistanced the Babylonian school of thought. They reminded Jesus of the ominous rumblings of rebellion in Jerusalem and throughout Palestine and assured him that any uprising of the Palestinian Jews would be equivalent to national suicide, that the iron hand of Rome would crush the rebellion in three months, and that Jerusalem would be destroyed and the temple demolished, that not one stone would be left upon another. (1414.2) 128:5.4 Jesus listened to all they had to say, thanked them for their confidence, and, in declining to go to Alexandria, in substance said, “My hour has not yet come.” They were nonplused by his apparent indifference to the honor they had sought to confer upon him. Before taking leave of Jesus, they presented him with a purse in token of the esteem of his Alexandrian friends and in compensation for the time and expense of coming over to Caesarea to confer with them. But he likewise refused the money, saying: “The house of Joseph has never received alms, and we cannot eat another’s bread as long as I have strong arms and my brothers can labor.” (1414.3) 128:5.5 His friends from Egypt set sail for home, and in subsequent years, when they heard rumors of the Capernaum boatbuilder who was creating such a commotion in Palestine, few of them surmised that he was the babe of Bethlehem grown up and the same strange-acting Galilean who had so unceremoniously declined the invitation to become a great teacher in Alexandria. (1414.4) 128:5.6 Jesus returned to Nazareth. The remainder of this year was the most uneventful six months of his whole career. He enjoyed this temporary respite from the usual program of problems to solve and difficulties to surmount. He communed much with his Father in heaven and made tremendous progress in the mastery of his human mind. (1414.5) 128:5.7 But human affairs on the worlds of time and space do not run smoothly for long. In December James had a private talk with Jesus, explaining that he was much in love with Esta, a young woman of Nazareth, and that they would sometime like to be married if it could be arranged. He called attention to the fact that Joseph would soon be eighteen years old, and that it would be a good experience for him to have a chance to serve as the acting head of the family. Jesus gave consent for James’s marriage two years later, provided he had, during the intervening time, properly trained Joseph to assume direction of the home. (1414.6) 128:5.8 And now things began to happen — marriage was in the air. James’s success in gaining Jesus’ assent to his marriage emboldened Miriam to approach her brother-father with her plans. Jacob, the younger stone mason, onetime self-appointed champion of Jesus, now business associate of James and Joseph, had long sought to gain Miriam’s hand in marriage. After Miriam had laid her plans before Jesus, he directed that Jacob should come to him making formal request for her and promised his blessing for the marriage just as soon as she felt that Martha was competent to assume her duties as eldest daughter. (1414.7) 128:5.9 When at home, he continued to teach the evening school three times a week, read the Scriptures often in the synagogue on the Sabbath, visited with his mother, taught the children, and in general conducted himself as a worthy and respected citizen of Nazareth in the commonwealth of Israel. 6. The Twenty-Fifth Year (A.D. 19) (1415.1) 128:6.1 This year began with the Nazareth family all in good health and witnessed the finishing of the regular schooling of all the children with the exception of certain work which Martha must do for Ruth. (1415.2) 128:6.2 Jesus was one of the most robust and refined specimens of manhood to appear on earth since the days of Adam. His physical development was superb. His mind was active, keen, and penetrating — compared with the average mentality of his contemporaries, it had developed gigantic proportions — and his spirit was indeed humanly divine. (1415.3) 128:6.3 The family finances were in the best condition since the disappearance of Joseph’s estate. The final payments had been made on the caravan repair shop; they owed no man and for the first time in years had some funds ahead. This being true, and since he had taken his other brothers to Jerusalem for their first Passover ceremonies, Jesus decided to accompany Jude (who had just graduated from the synagogue school) on his first visit to the temple. (1415.4) 128:6.4 They went up to Jerusalem and returned by the same route, the Jordan valley, as Jesus feared trouble if he took his young brother through Samaria. Already at Nazareth Jude had got into slight trouble several times because of his hasty disposition, coupled with his strong patriotic sentiments. (1415.5) 128:6.5 They arrived at Jerusalem in due time and were on their way for a first visit to the temple, the very sight of which had stirred and thrilled Jude to the very depths of his soul, when they chanced to meet Lazarus of Bethany. While Jesus talked with Lazarus and sought to arrange for their joint celebration of the Passover, Jude started up real trouble for them all. Close at hand stood a Roman guard who made some improper remarks regarding a Jewish girl who was passing. Jude flushed with fiery indignation and was not slow in expressing his resentment of such an impropriety directly to and within hearing of the soldier. Now the Roman legionnaires were very sensitive to anything bordering on Jewish disrespect; so the guard promptly placed Jude under arrest. This was too much for the young patriot, and before Jesus could caution him by a warning glance, he had delivered himself of a voluble denunciation of pent-up anti-Roman feelings, all of which only made a bad matter worse. Jude, with Jesus by his side, was taken at once to the military prison. (1415.6) 128:6.6 Jesus endeavored to obtain either an immediate hearing for Jude or else his release in time for the Passover celebration that evening, but he failed in these attempts. Since the next day was a “holy convocation” in Jerusalem, even the Romans would not presume to hear charges against a Jew. Accordingly, Jude remained in confinement until the morning of the second day after his arrest, and Jesus stayed at the prison with him. They were not present in the temple at the ceremony of receiving the sons of the law into the full citizenship of Israel. Jude did not pass through this formal ceremony for several years, until he was next in Jerusalem at a Passover and in connection with his propaganda work in behalf of the Zealots, the patriotic organization to which he belonged and in which he was very active. (1415.7) 128:6.7 The morning following their second day in prison Jesus appeared before the military magistrate in behalf of Jude. By making apologies for his brother’s youth and by a further explanatory but judicious statement with reference to the provocative nature of the episode which had led up to the arrest of his brother, Jesus so handled the case that the magistrate expressed the opinion that the young Jew might have had some possible excuse for his violent outburst. After warning Jude not to allow himself again to be guilty of such rashness, he said to Jesus in dismissing them: “You had better keep your eye on the lad; he’s liable to make a lot of trouble for all of you.” And the Roman judge spoke the truth. Jude did make considerable trouble for Jesus, and always was the trouble of this same nature — clashes with the civil authorities because of his thoughtless and unwise patriotic outbursts. (1416.1) 128:6.8 Jesus and Jude walked over to Bethany for the night, explaining why they had failed to keep their appointment for the Passover supper, and set out for Nazareth the following day. Jesus did not tell the family about his young brother’s arrest at Jerusalem, but he had a long talk with Jude

Imagine the worst thing that could happen to you! Would it mean that God's plans had come crashing down? I feel like that when bad things happen, but that's why this week’s lesson "Blindness from Heaven" is so important. When Stephen was stoned in the first century it looked like God was against the ropes, but turn to Acts 9. God was about to choose a new champion for Christ.